Royal DSM N.V., the global Life Sciences and Materials Sciences company
headquartered in the Netherlands, today announced that it has officially
endorsed the ‘Roadmap to End Global Hunger’, a comprehensive strategy
announced by a broad based coalition of leading humanitarian organizations
aimed at addressing global hunger through short, mid range and long term
initiatives focused on achieving the Millennium Development Goals of halving
global hunger by 2015.
DSM, as a world leader in nutrition, is proud to be the first company to
endorse this strategy, and pledges to continue its work in partnership with
humanitarian organizations and governments around the world to find
sustainable solutions to the issue of micronutrient deficiency. This
endorsement further demonstrates DSM’s commitment to addressing the problem of
micronutrient deficiency – or ‘hidden hunger’ as it is also known – a problem
that affects an estimated 2 billion people across the world.
The Roadmap to End Global Hunger sets forth a strategy and comprehensive plan
for the United States government to lead the international community in
alleviating all forms of hunger. It calls for increased allocation of
resources to address the challenges of hunger and malnutrition and the
creation of a White House Office on Global Hunger and Food Security.
The private sector has a crucial role to play in addressing the problem of
hidden hunger in both the developed and the developing world through the
development of new business models, and nutritious food and food supplements,
tailored to the specific needs of particular population groups.
DSM is for example delivering support to the World Food Programme through
donating its MixMe™ sachets - a single dose sachet of vitamins and minerals
that can be sprinkled over food just before serving or eating. So far
approximately 250,000 thousand people across Kenya, Nepal and Bangladesh have
been supplied with the MixMe™ sachets. For another product, NutriRice™, DSM
recently received the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) award for
the most important innovation towards addressing micronutrient malnutrition.
On the occasion of the Micronutrient Forum 2009 in Beijing, DSM has started to
raise awareness for what is in danger of becoming a forgotten issue and signed
a private sector declaration calling for action. DSM took a next step in
participating in the Amsterdam Initiative on Malnutrition (AIM), a Dutch
public-private partnership, launched at the end of May 2009, aiming at
eliminating malnutrition for 100 million people in Africa by 2015.
According to
Stephan Tanda, Member of the Managing Board of DSM: ‘It is clear
that not one sector – neither public, nor private – will be able to solve the
problem of hidden hunger alone. Both public and private sectors will have to
work together very closely. We are happy to endorse this important US
initiative addressing the challenges of malnutrition.’
He further stated that ’We welcome the measures recently announced at
the G8 Summit to address the problem of food security, and urge the US
Administration, in partnership with the private sector and other stakeholders,
to show similar leadership in relation to hidden hunger: the forgotten
Millennium Development Goal.’
DSM is committed to continuing to work in partnership with the Friends of the
World Food Programme, government, trade associations, corporate stakeholders
and other private sector actors to facilitate further successful
public/private partnerships in finding sustainable solutions to hunger issues
and furthering the strategic goals set forth in the Roadmap to End Global
Hunger.
