STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK

The Strategic Plan of the Network for Sustained Elimination of Iodine Deficiency outlines the strategic directions and specific actions that are to be implemented by the Network itself through its Board and Secretariat. It also includes some of the actions that will be carried out by one or more individual Member Organizations of the Network following an agreement reached by all Members, where the role of the Network is more coordination than implementation. The period covered by the Strategic Plan is 2004-2010. The Strategic Plan does not deal with the post-2010 period but clearly decisions regarding the Network's longer term prospects, including the need for its continued existence, will be informed by progress achieved in the interim.

 The main purpose of the Network is to accelerate progress towards the UN goal to achieve sustainable elimination of iodine deficiency disorders. This requires focussing on those countries where achieving Universal Salt Iodization (USI) can make the most gains in the next few years, in terms of protecting large numbers of people, especially infants. The challenges to Universal Salt Iodization are numerous. They include lack of political will on the part of governments, lack of demand and awareness on the part of the public, both of which are associated with an inadequate legal and regulatory framework for requiring that all salt is iodized. In some countries there are technical problems in iodizing certain salts and in many countries there are problems in quality control and laboratory monitoring of salt and of human iodine nutritional status. In most developing countries, even those that are close to achieving >90% coverage of households with access to adequately iodized salt, the situation is not sustainable because external donors, mainly through UNICEF, are paying at least part of the costs of iodizing salt.

Any strategy, including this one, must therefore have a multi-pronged approach to solve the problem. The approach should include (as appropriate) advocacy with governments, education and mobilization for civil society, advice on legislation and regulations, technical support to the salt industry and to government regulatory authorities, and responsiveness to deal with emergency and other unique situations.

Thus, although the Network works through the actions of its individual members, this strategy will only succeed if the members agree to work within the framework of a coordinated international campaign that is mounted in the name of the Network and implemented through the technical-advocacy-fundraising-implementation collaboration that the Network can provide. Nothing less will achieve the goal of significant gains being realised by the end of 2005 and the goal of elimination of IDD being reached before the end of 2010.

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