This week, Project Healthy Children had what we all agree was the most significant day in our history. On July 3, 2013, the Rwandan Ministry of Trade and Industry officially approved the nation’s drafted fortification standards for maize flour, wheat flour, cooking oil, sugar, and salt making them mandatory throughout the country. By the beginning of 2014, all designated staple food products produced in Rwanda and imported into Rwanda must contain accurate amounts of key nutrients at levels that have been harmonized with the East Africa region.
Children in Rwanda will now have a greater chance of fighting malaria, measles, and diarrhea, and less of a chance of being born with severe birth defects. Women will have a greater chance of survival during childbirth, and all Rwandans will benefit from increased physical and mental productivity.
None of this would have been possible without the generous support of our donors and a number of dedicated individuals from the Ministry of Health, Bureau of Standards, KIST, National Institute of Statistics, and industry who worked tirelessly over the years to set the wheels in motion that would ensure the whole of Rwanda’s population could have access to foods with critically needed vitamin and mineral.
Over the next year, Project Healthy Children will continue to work closely with the Bureau of Standards to ensure a strong monitoring system continues to be built, with the Ministry of Health to ensure consumer advocacy campaigns are designed and disseminated, and finally, with industry to guide them through the certification process and to ensure they have the necessary equipment and know-how to comply with the mandatory standards.
Project Healthy Children could not be more proud this day to work with such a committed Government and to know that the people of Rwanda will finally be able to benefit from the critically missing nutrients that fortified foods provide.