Key MINIMOD Messages
Based on the work of the MINIMOD team and collaborators to date, the following key messages summarize the project’s recommendations for countries aiming to identify more cost-effective sets of micronutrient intervention programs:
Know your problems
- Know your diets, sub-nationally
- Know your micronutrient deficiencies, sub-nationally
Define your objectives clearly and concretely
- Select one or more specific targets – e.g., reach, coverage, effective coverage, lives saved, cases of anemia avoided
- Identify key beneficiary groups, e.g., young children, or women of reproductive age
- Define your program impact pathways
Know your existing programs
- What interventions are currently being implemented (where, by whom)
- What are the impacts of each intervention (is it at full potential, what target groups are benefiting, and how much)
Know the expected benefits of alternative programs
- Know the contributions of alternative programs to reducing micronutrient deficiencies for the different target groups
Know the costs of existing and alternative programs
- Formative research, establishment and operational costs, M&E costs
Aim for efficient solutions
- Let cost-effectiveness be your guide in selecting combinations of interventions
Adopt a multi-year, sub-national framework
- Select cost-effective combinations of national and sub-national programs, and practical multi-year pathways for implementing them
Monitor your programs
- Planning, implementation, outputs, outcomes
- Establish and fund formal multi-sectoral monitoring and coordination teams to ensure results
Keep an eye on the most vulnerable
- The poor merit special attention and may warrant special nutrition programs