Smarter Futures | Improving health in Africa through the enrichment of wheat and maize flour

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Smarter Futures is a three-year project which provides technical support and training for flour millers in Africa. Government food control staff are also included as they too are key partners in fortifying flour with vitamins and minerals. Fortification of flour with essential vitamins and minerals will improve people’s health and well-being and lead to smarter futures.

The project also provides support for leadership training on the importance of nutrition in achieving improved public health and the Millennium Development Goals.

Latest news

Presentations, photographs and additional material from the training Quality Assurance/Quality Control – Monitoring & Surveillance of Flour Fortification Programmes are now available on the FFI website.

Scott J. Montgomery has been named Director of the Flour Fortification Initiative (FFI), a network of partners working to make the addition of vitamins and minerals to flour standard milling practice worldwide. He brings 30 years of cereal grain industry expertise to the leadership position, in addition to experience in working with the FFI Executive Management Team (EMT). Read more

Quentin Johnson was awarded an Honorary Doctors of Laws from the University of Guelph. An advocate and consultant for a worldwide flour fortification programme, Quentin Johnson has established programmes that have either directly or indirectly improved the lives of nearly thirty percent of the world’s population. Read more

The partners involved are the Flour Fortification Initiative, AkzoNobel, Helen Keller International, the International Federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus (IF) and BOSK, with the financial support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. They all work toward preventing problems caused by vitamin and mineral deficiencies, such as neural tube birth defects, impaired learning capacity and decreased productivity.

Flour fortification is one strategy for addressing such deficiencies because it delivers essential nutrients through staple foods. It does not require consumers to change their eating or buying habits.