Procuring supplies for children
Nutrition and micronutrients
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| © UNICEF/HQ06-2763/Bruno Brioni |
| COTE D'IVOIRE: A malnourished child drinks fortified milk while his mother watches at a centre in the rebel-controlled zone of Bouake. UNICEF provides supplementary feeding to families in the area. |
About 150 million children under five - one in four - are malnourished. UNICEF procures nutritional supplies such as high protein biscuits and micronutrients to combat this problem. In 2008, UNICEF's procurement of nutrition supplies totalled $86 million. These ranged from micronutrients, oral rehydration salts and zinc, therapeutic food for malnourished children to scales and cooking kits. The main focus was on supplies requested for emergency situations. There was a very large procurement of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), a paste made of peanut butter with added vitamins and minerals, especially for children starving in the Horn of Africa. Between 2006 and 2008, UNICEF's procurement of RUTF increased by 450 per cent to 11,000 tonnes.
UNICEF also supplied more than 541.5 million donated and procured Vitamin A treatments from its Copenhagen warehouse. In its first full year of supply, UNICEF procured 65 million sachets of multiple micronutrient powder.
