The OBAASIMA Seal and Campaign was developed under the Affordable Nutritious Foods for Women (ANF4W) project, as a trademark for quality fortified food products targeted at Ghanaian women of reproductive age.

Quality fortified foods, with the OBAASIMA Seal on them, add important vitamins and minerals to a women’s diet, to overcome micronutrient-malnutrition or “hidden hunger”, a condition still affecting 2 billion people worldwide.

In Ghana, anaemia or iron deficiency remains a common problem. These micronutrient deficiencies can be assuaged by complementing our diets with OBAASIMA foods.

The seal was developed by ANF4W’s in cooperation with the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI). The welcome address was given by Professor Akosa, the focal point person for NDPC’s Scaling Up Nutrition.

His speech was followed by opening remarks of the representative of the German Ambassador, as ANF4W is a public private partnership between the German Government – Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development – and its funding partners, the Children Investment Fund Foundation, DSM and Sight and Life, and Ajinomoto.

Further opening remarks were given by the managers of the seal, the Ghana Standards Authority in cooperation with the Association of Ghana Industries, who will continue to administer the seal registration for any new interested businesses that want to fortify their products to OBAASIMA quality standards.

The OBAASIMA Seal unveiling was a spectacular show which revealed the seal in an innovative framework followed by statements of support of the Ministries of Gender, Children and Social Protection, of Trade and Industry, of Health, and of Food and Agriculture.

The campaign materials of the seal were presented in three languages (English, Twi, Dagbani), reflecting the locally appropriated context of the communication to promote the seal.

Videos and radio materials were presented to the delight of the audience, not to mention a sketch was presented, entirely surrounding the OBAASIMA Seal launch, captivating the audience as well as explaining the importance of the campaign.

www.obaasimaghana.com

Professor Akosa at the launch

Children’s Investment Fund Foundation

Supported by an endowment of $4.4 billion, CIFF is the world’s largest philanthropy that focuses specifically on improving children’s lives. Bringing business principles to development, we work with partners to achieve urgent and lasting change for children at scale.

In the financial year to 31 August 2015, there was a rapid growth of the grant portfolio and significant progress to seemingly intractable challenges for children and their families.

The value of grants disbursed rose by 80% to $220 million, compared to the previous financial year. New grants were approved across our main priority areas of children's nutrition, health, early learning, deworming and climate change. Based in London, the foundation is led by Chris Hohn. https://ciff.org/

Royal DSM Sight and Life

Royal DSM is a global science-based company headquartered in Heerlen, Netherlands, that is active in health, nutrition and materials. The company has 23.500 employees and shows an annual turnover of EUR 9,131 billion 2012.

DSM delivers innovative solutions to nourish, protect and improve performance in global markets such as food and dietary supplements, personal care, feed, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and more. DSM is a leading supplier of vitamins, carotenoids, nutritional ingredients, UV filters, premixes and macroblends for human and animal nutrition & health.

It offers the most complete feed enzymes portfolio worldwide. Its customers are global, regional and local feed and premix companies, animal protein producers and food, beverage, dietary supplement, pharmaceutical, personal care and flavor/fragrance companies.

http://www.dsm.com/corporate/home.html

Sight and Life (S&L) is the philanthropic initiative and nutrition think tank of DSM. S&L is not an independent entity but directly belongs to DSM. It guides original nutrition research, disseminate findings and facilitate dialogue. S&L works through advocacy and leadership to address societal changes affecting dietary quality. http://www.sightandlife.org/

GIZ: An innovative partner for the global challenges of tomorrow

The wide range of services offered by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH are based on a wealth of regional and technical expertise and on tried and tested management know-how.

GIZ is a German federal enterprise and offers workable, sustainable and effective solutions in political, economic and social change processes. Most of GIZ’s work is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

However, GIZ also operates on behalf of other German ministries and public and private bodies in Germany and abroad. These include governments of other countries, the European Commission, the United Nations and the World Bank. GIZ is equally committed to helping its clients in the private sector attain their goals.

GIZ operates throughout Germany and in more than 130 countries worldwide. The registered offices of GIZ are in Bonn and Eschborn. In 2015 our business volume exceeded 2.1 billion euros. Of our 17,319 staff in over 130 countries, around 70 per cent are national personnel working in the field.

In our capacity as a recognised sending organisation, we currently have 730 development workers in action in partner countries. In addition, CIM, a joint operation of GIZ and the Federal Employment Agency, placed almost 1,000 integrated and returning experts with local employers abroad in 2015 while providing them with financial support and advisory services. More information: http://www.giz.de/en/

The develoPPP.de programme

develoPPP.de was set up by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to foster the involvement of the private sector at the point where business opportunities and development policy initiatives intersect.

The programme is executed on behalf of BMZ by the Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH (DEG), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and sequa gGmbH. Since the programme started in 1999, GIZ has carried out joint projects with private companies on behalf of BMZ in over 60 newly industrialised and developing countries.

Partnerships range from energy projects, water and wastewater management and vocational training through to product certification and supply chain management. More information:

http://www.developpp.de/en

Contact and interview requests:

Sarah Lena Jensen (ANF4W Ghana Project Coordinator) E sarah.jensen@giz.de

Akua A. Kwakwa (ANF4W Ghana Project Coordinator) E akua.kwakwa@giz.de M +233-24-4329733,