Working with others
We work with our partners to achieve long-term solutions to the many health and nutrition challenges facing consumers around the world.
Global partnerships to enhance nutrition
The complexity of global nutrition and health issues such as over- and under-nutrition needs a joint approach by the public and private sector.
Working with partners is essential if we are to achieve our goals. In such partnerships our consumer research and marketing insights, as well as our R&D capabilities and nutrition expertise, can make a difference by providing an understanding of changing consumer lifestyles, consumer needs and what prompts effective behaviour change. Our partners provide in-depth insights into nutrition and health issues and their social context as well as their local networks and capabilities to facilitate change.
We work with a range of international health organisations, including UNICEF to combat child mortality through nutrition and hygiene initiatives, the United Nations (UN) World Food Programme on helping to feed hungry children and improve their nutrition, the World Heart Federation on promoting heart health, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) to co-create new approaches in food fortification to address malnutrition and the World Health Organization on combating chronic diseases including obesity.
Within Unilever we co-ordinate our collaboration with global health organisations through our Partnership Development Group, formed in 2006. This group is based in the Unilever Food & Health Research Institute and reports to the senior vice president of corporate responsibility.
In addition to the numerous health and nutrition partnerships co-ordinated and implemented at a local level, our principal international partnerships are as follows:
UN World Food Programme
In December 2006 we joined the UN World Food Programme in a three-year partnership, Together for Child Vitality, which aims to improve the health and nutrition of school children in developing countries.
We provide funding and product donations for school meals. School meals encourage children to attend school and help them to concentrate on their studies which in the long term helps to lift them out of poverty. Brands such as Rama/Blue Band margarine are also raising funds and increasing awareness about child hunger in nine countries. In addition, our employees raised funds through local fund-raising activities and participation in a Walk the World event, with over 3 500 staff in 14 countries taking part.
We have also set up a dedicated unit for Unilever employees to take part in secondments at the World Food Programme, contributing skills in human resources, supply chain management, communications and nutrition. For example, we have advised WFP on ensuring school meals contain the essential nutrients children need for their development and also introduced an education campaign component to the partnership. In 2008, five Unilever specialists undertook secondments in WFP offices in developing countries.
During 2008 the partnership extended its scope from four countries to six (Kenya, Ghana, Indonesia, Colombia, the Philippines and Pakistan) and delivered 16 million meals to 76 000 school children. The rise in commodity prices increased the cost of school meals by 25%, so that despite raising significantly more funds, we fed 4 000 fewer children than in 2007. The latest annual report is available to download in related links.
However, providing meals is just the first step; meals must also offer the nutrients that are essential for children's growth and health. Unilever has been supporting WFP in a scientific review of the nutritional needs of school children, as well as a study of the nutrients that school meals currently deliver. This research is expected to lead to innovative product development to improve the nutritional value of WFP's school meals globally.
Unilever has also worked with WFP to develop school nutrition and hygiene education programmes for piloting in Colombia, Kenya and Indonesia.
Stakeholder view: “One of the big challenges of micronutrient deficiencies is to get these nutrients into the diet of these children who might only eat the one meal you provide at school. Unilever is helping us with their expertise on how to modify food products to make them nutrient-dense”. Rene McGuffin – Kenya WFP programme manager |
UNICEF
We are working with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to cut childhood mortality through combined nutrition and hygiene projects in Asia and Africa. This will help to achieve UN Millennium Development Goal 4, which seeks a two-thirds reduction, between 1990 and 2015, in the under-five mortality rate.
In Asia, UNICEF, Unilever and non-profit organisation Synergos have formed the Partnership for Child Nutrition. Starting in India as the Bhavishya Alliance, it comprises a broad coalition of government, private sector and community-based organisations to develop solutions to combat child malnutrition in India by 50% by 2015. Pilot projects are ongoing in rural and urban areas with the aim of achieving measurable reductions in child malnutrition.
World Heart Federation
Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of premature death worldwide. Unilever's partnership with the World Heart Federation (WHF) seeks to increase awareness of the role a healthy diet and lifestyle can play in helping to maintain heart health and reducing the risk of cardiovascular problems.
The WHF is a global organisation committed to the prevention and control of heart disease and stroke and is made up of over 170 medical societies and heart charities from 100 countries.
Since 2003, the World Heart Federation and our heart health brand, Becel/Flora, have worked in partnership to increase consumer awareness of cardiovascular disease prevention. In 2006 we renewed our WHF partnership for a further three years.
We are a key sponsor of World Heart Day each September and have co-published with WHF a booklet on heart disease and cholesterol.
Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition
As part of our work toward achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals, we are a board member of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a consortium of UN organisations, major NGOs and private sector organisations. GAIN seeks to improve health through the elimination of vitamin and mineral deficiencies using food fortification. GAIN is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank Institute. We also chair the GAIN Business Alliance which aims to create a common understanding of the challenges and opportunities of food fortification and the role of the public and private sector in combating micronutrient deficiencies in developing countries.
We are also members of GAIN's Amsterdam Initiative on Malnutrition (AIM), working to improve food fortification in Africa. AIM is a partnership involving Unilever, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dutch companies DSM and AkzoNobel and Wageningen University, also in the Netherlands.
Other nutrition partners
Wageningen University
To support research on micronutrient deficiencies in the developing world, Unilever is financing the Micronutrients and International Health Chair at Wageningen University in the Netherlands for five years. As part of this research programme, we also fund three PhD and six master's level scholarships for students from developing countries, helping them to become future nutrition experts in their home countries, and thus contributing to finding effective solutions for the issues around maternal and child nutrition.
International Union of Nutritional Sciences
In early 2009 Unilever and the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS), a leading NGO, announced a three-year partnership aimed at communicating scientifically based nutrition principles to the public, while developing future leaders in nutrition and health. Delegates at the meeting in Barcelona agreed to endorse the use of high-quality fats (including plant-based margarine and mayonnaise) instead of butter and to champion this message in their countries.
