The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) Celebrates International Women's Day

GENEVA, March 8, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) marks International Women's Day through its commitment to improving the lives of 253 million women and children each day in Africa, Asia and Latin America. GAIN's innovative approach enables women to access staple foods and condiments fortified with essential nutrients by developing markets to enable products to reach scale, by improving supply and demand and by enhancing the policy regulatory environment.

Despite the progress of women since International Women's Day was established in 1909, millions of women live on the knife-edge of poverty and lack the means to provide their families with adequate food and nutrition. Women share an unequal amount of the burden of malnutrition – making up the majority of the 2 billion people worldwide who are malnourished – with girls as the first to suffer from short food supplies.

GAIN's programs target women of child bearing age and young children, and specifically the 1,000 day window from conception to the child's second birthday, the period when lack of adequate nutrition does the most damage, physically and cognitively. 

In Bangladesh, India, Cote d'Ivoire and Kenya, GAIN is working with local businesses and governments to bring nutritious complementary foods and supplements to children from 6 to 59 months of age. One of GAIN's innovative partnerships in Rajasthan, India empowers local women by training them to work in small, food processing factories which develop nutritious fortified foods and to pass that knowledge on to other women in their community.

GAIN's newest initiative, Future Fortified, is a global campaign to raise awareness among women in developed countries of the long-term damages of malnutrition. It is a global movement of "women helping women" through increasing access to nutrients needed for women in developing countries to lead healthy and enriching lives.

Marc Van Ameringen, Executive Director at GAIN, remarked "GAIN is committed each and every day to improving the lives and future potential of hundreds of millions women and girls in developing countries through innovative, partnerships that reach populations at scale. For women to participate freely in their societies and towards the economic development of their countries, they must have the proper nutrients for themselves and their children to thrive."

About GAIN

Driven by a vision of a world without malnutrition, GAIN was created in 2002 at a Special Session of the U.N. General Assembly on Children. GAIN supports public-private partnerships to increase access to the missing nutrients in diets necessary for people, communities and economies to be stronger and healthier. With a current daily reach of over 530 million people (half of whom are women and children) in more than 30 countries GAIN's goal is to improve the lives of one billion people within the most vulnerable populations around the world through access to sustainable nutrition solutions.   For more information, please visit us at www.gainhealth.org, follow us on Twitter @GAINalliance and like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/GAINalliance.

Media Contact: Kate Wild Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), +41(0)22 749 15 11, [email protected]

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SOURCE Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN)