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1. INTRODUCTION

Micronutrients – or vitamins and minerals needed in small quantities - are essential to a good start in life and robust growth and development. In particular, vitamin A, iodine, iron, zinc and folate play pivotal roles in maintaining healthy and productive populations.

Around the world, at least two billion people live with vitamins and mineral deficiencies. The delivery of micronutrients to those who need them is a giant undertaking, but one that has already seen some significant successes benefitting large populations.

Many micronutrient programmes have yielded well-documented returns in improved physical and intellectual capacity. With increased long-term investment by national governments and their partners in development, they could yield much more. Emerging new programmes, that are affordable, feasible and well-grounded in science, are now also available to help expand still further the potential benefits offered by micronutrients.

The relatively low cost and high returns of micronutrient interventions are so good they have won the highest praise from the world’s top economists. In 2008, the Copenhagen Consensus panel determined that vitamin A and zinc supplementation for children provided the very best return on investment across all global development efforts. Fortifying foods with iron and iodine was ranked third and biofortification ranked fifth out of a total of 30 possible programme choices, showing that across the board, micronutrient interventions are some of the most cost-effective development efforts.