1st MEETING of the INTERIM WORKING GROUP
Kiwanis International, Indianapolis IN, USA 
August 23, 2000

Conveners of the Round Table meeting of Leaders at the Salt2000 Symposium nominated a small Interim Working Group to develop a recommendation on the establishment and operation of a new Partnership on Sustained Elimination of Iodine Deficiency .

The group, with members from the salt industry, UN agency, NGO and academic communities, held its first meeting on August 23, 2000 at the office of Kiwanis International, with other interested experts attending. Below is a summary of the discussions and the proposed next steps. 

The events at Salt2000 witnessed the culmination of an archetypal change in working relations among the international organizations involved in the global elimination of iodine deficiency. The crucial role played by salt producers everywhere in national efforts to attain and sustain the global goal of elimination of iodine deficiency had come to full recognition. Thus, the present holds an opportunity like never before to bring together the full range of talents needed under a common vision for applying the pooled expertise and resources to achievement of the goal. 

A small expert group nominated by the conveners of the Round Table meeting of Leaders at Salt2000 met for a first discussion of what it might take to realize this potential. Members of the group are Walter Becky of Morton Salt, Nettles Brown of Kiwanis International, Frits van der Haar of Emory University, David Haxton of the Micronutrient Initiative, Justus de Jong of Akzo Nobel Salt, Venkatesh Mannar of the Micronutrient Initiative, and Werner Schultink of UNICEF. Bill Brown of Kiwanis International, Dick Hanneman of the Salt Institute, Glen Maberly of Emory University, and Ray Mitchell of Kiwanis International joined in the discussions. This summary reflects the ideas and conclusions reached at the meeting. They should not be understood to be the official policy position of any organization from which the members were nominated.

The members of the group were strongly aware of the importance that the new Partnership should adopt a realistic position regarding the role it would set out to play. In discussing the vision for the Partnership, it was agreed that the new endeavor would rest on the concepts of national ownership, international collaboration, and mutually supportive actions. The challenge is to bring together the full range of talents from multiple international origins, willing to collaboratively give support to the national responsibility of assuring that the elimination is sustained. The added value would be the assistance in actions that assure that the national USI policy is reinforced by the services and conditions necessary to sustain its national success. Apart from advocacy, this would require an activist role. The attractiveness for members to participate in a Partnership would be that their current agendas benefited from working with others who also share information, expertise and support to the common goal. The Partnership should be inclusive, and attempt the representation and participation of an expanded range of interested organizations.

The new Partnership should strive to avoid duplication of efforts, take full advantage of the roles attributed to each member and others, and welcome the collaboration and inclusion of all who subscribe to its mission. A mechanism for delivery was thought of as a resource bank or clearing house that mobilized contributions from constituent and associated members through existent channels. The talents of members could be brought strategically into play upon clear definition of a problem that could uniquely be addressed by the joint action of partners, rather than through existing channels of any single organization. Assessment and analysis of problems would take place through working with national coordinating coalitions, while fully engaging the national expertise. 

A draft mission was proposed as follows: The Partnership convenes interested organizations in collaborative actions to sustain the global priority for the elimination of iodine deficiency, and to support the actions of national coalitions similar in composition, which ensure that the diets of people remain sufficient in iodine through universal access to iodized salt.

A major first thrust would be to re-affirm or create the counterpart national coalitions. This could be done by expanding national coordinating committees where they exist, or creating them where they do not, mostly through the appropriate existing channels of members. It would be ideal if national coalitions had similar co-equal multiple sector memberships as envisioned for the global Partnership. The ongoing country-based audits of the progress towards USI, as presently being collected in UNICEF, were mentioned as starting point for systematic problem analysis and response. 

In a simple draft version, the Partnership structure would have two components: The Summit and the Alliance. The Summit of Leaders , to be held 2-3 yearly, would be both the body and point in time to review the global score card of USI and the bottom line in iodine nutrition. The Summit meetings would reach for the best media exposure, and make linkages to the national leaders who own successes. Leaders at a Summit would provide the mandate for continued engagement of the constituent organizations in the Partnership. The Alliance would have a Board, nominated from the Partnership members, and augmented by eminent persons nominated from countries with iodine deficiency problems. The Alliance Board would be the governing body for the Partnership, and it would have international NGO status. A full-time Secretariat would support the Alliance, set up its communications and ensure its technical support functions. The Secretariat could form ad-hoc Task Forces by calling on Partnership members and others, as required and appropriate. The resources needed for the work of the Secretariat and the Task Forces would be mobilized through the Alliance Board. Joint service work in countries would be paid from supplemental budgets, solicited by the Secretariat. Most support for in-country work could flow directly from partners without involving the Alliance. 

To facilitate the work of the IWG, Justus de Jong was appointed as Chairman, David Haxton as Chief Scribe, and Frits van der Haar as Coordinator. A next IWG meeting was planned for November 27-28 at UNICEF's head office in New York. A general structure was devised for the document to propose the organizational structure and operational plan for the Partnership. The draft document would be ready for consideration at the IWG next meeting, and the finalized document would be submitted to leaders of interested organizations by mid December 2000. It was hoped that a Summit of Leaders would formalize the formation of the Partnership at a venue in Europe in early January 2001. Justus de Jong was asked to explore the possibilities of a venue and the interests by Europe-based organizations in hosting and attending at the Summit. 

7 September 2000.