TNAG-2110-FCO40-3009-Hong-Kong-participation-in-international-organisations-1990 — Page 213

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provide information through technical newsletters and publications. WHO and UNICEF are active partners in these three technical groups.

FAO,

29. The International Vitamin A Consultative Group (IVACG) was established more than ten years ago and has close links with the UN agencies. The Secretariat is with the Nutrition Foundation. During the launching in 1985 of the UN Ten Year Action Programme to Control and Prevent Vitamin A deficiency, Xerophthalmia and Nutritional Blindness, IVACG was selected to act as clearing house for all research aspects of the programme. FAO's contribution to this programme is to provide assistance to agricultural based interventions as increased production and consumption with changed dietary habits will provide the solution to this problem in the long-term.

30. FAO has collaborated with IVACG in the recent past, specifically as member in two technical IVACG task forces on the development of guidelines for dietary assistance to identify groups at risk and on communication through mass media. For the latter topic, a joint FAO/IVACG meeting was held in Rome in 1986. Participation of FAO technical staff during annual IVACG meetings provides continuation to these links and ensures that agricultural-based issues and concerns are brought into the forefront of research programmes for addressing the existing problems through long-term agricultural interventions.

31. A similar technical group, the international nutritional anaemia consultative group, INACG, was established more than a decade ago with its secretariat in the Nutrition Foundation. This group works in close collaboration with WHO. Like IVACG this group deals with assisting national professionals in research and programme aspects of anaemia prevention and control. FAO has participated in its annual meetings in the past. Nutrition education programmes of FAO include anaemia prevention, primarily through promotion of increased intakes of animal food and its products.

32. A third large international group deals with iodine deficiency disorders (IDD): the International Consultative Committee on Iodine Deficiency Disorders (ICIDD). This Committee, like the two above, works closely with WHO and UNICEF in control and prevention programmes, which remain to date public health interventions such as the injection of iodine solution and the fortification of major food items, primarily salt. The role of FAO has been in the past that of the promoter of correct intake of adequate or fortified foods and of nutrition education, since agricultural interventions such as enrichment of soil is not considered a viable economic intervention as yet.

33. Through these three international groups, UN agencies are active partners in dealing with micronutrient deficiencies; the actions of UN agencies themselves being coordinated by the United Nations Administrative Committee on Coordination Sub-committee on Nutrition (ACC/SCN). All main technical agencies and programmes concerned with nutrition, namely FAO, WHO, UNICEF, IFAD, ILO, WFP participate in this Sub-committee. It was SCN in fact which decided to give priority to the control and prevention of micronutrient deficiencies (iron, iodine and vitamin A) since low cost technical solutions exist to reduce these deficiencies to a level where there are no longer public health problems.

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