Frequently Asked Questions
General questions
Food fortification is one of the most cost-effective and proven interventions used to prevent vitamin and mineral (micronutrient) deficiencies at a population level. Fortification is the process of adding essential micronutrients to commonly consumed foods such as maize flour, oil, rice, salt, and wheat flour. Food fortification can be part of a country’s nutrition strategy and used to complement other interventions, such as micronutrient supplementation, dietary diversity promotion, biofortification, home fortification, promotion of good infant and child feeding practices, and others.
If you would like to learn more, please visit our resources page for additional information on best practices, fortification advocacy, and more.
GFDx is a collaborative effort by the Food Fortification Initiative (FFI), the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), the Iodine Global Network (IGN), and the Micronutrient Forum. FFI helps country leaders promote, plan, implement, and monitor fortification of industrially milled maize flour, rice, and wheat flour, while also creating sustainable national programs through public, private, and civic partnerships. GAIN works to improve nutrition outcomes by improving the consumption of nutritious and safe food, aiming to make healthier food choices more affordable, available, and desirable in the countries that it serves. IGN works towards the sustainable elimination of iodine deficiency worldwide by ensuring that salt is iodized forever, protecting the health, developing brains and learning ability of children everywhere. The Micronutrient Forum promotes aligned and collective action on vitamins, minerals and other nutrients across sectors by bridging nutrition science, policy, programs, and responsible business practices for health and well-being.
If you are interested in learning more about these organizations, please visit their websites:
GFDx maintains a mailing list, which is used to periodically send updates regarding new data and visualizations, webinars, and other relevant news and events on fortification. It’s a great way for you to stay informed about GFDx! Subscribe to the GFDx newsletter here.
You can reach us through our Contact Us page, or you can email us directly at info@fortificationdata.org.
GFDx maintains copies of all cited documents. To request any of these cited documents, please reach out to us via the Contact Us page, or you can email us directly at info@fortificationdata.org. All documents can be shared unless explicitly restricted by the country or source that provided the information.
We believe that better data transparency can support more informed programs and effective policy making. We encourage governments, non-governmental agencies, program implementers, donors, researchers, and the private sector to contribute data to GFDx. We accept data contributions on any of the foods we currently include, from any country, and in any language.
To share your data, or provide any comments and feedback about the GFDx website, please visit the Contact Us page and fill out the contact form. We look forward to hearing from you!
Using GFDx
On the How to Use GFDx page, you can find resources that provide a brief introduction to GFDx and demonstrations to help you navigate the website.
If you have any questions beyond what is covered, please reach out to us via the Contact Us page.
No special permission is required to use the information from the GFDx website. However, we ask that you cite the website, maps, or visualizations.
Suggested citation for the website:
Global Fortification Data Exchange. Accessed dd/mm/yyyy. [http://www.fortificationdata.org.]
Suggested citation for visualizations:
The suggested citations for visualizations are located below each visualization. Generally, the format is as follows: Global Fortification Data Exchange. “Name of visualization.” Accessed dd/mm/yyyy. [https://www.fortificationdata.org.]
Each of the 196 countries in the GFDx database has their own Country Dashboard page. Simply select the country from the drop-down menu to view the data.
The country dashboard provides a detailed summary of food fortification data for five foods—maize flour, oil, rice, salt, and wheat flour—organized into three categories: 1) fortification opportunity, which shows a country’s potential for food fortification; 2) foundational documents, which provide background information on the country’s fortification legislation and regulation; and 3) program performance, which tracks the implementation and effectiveness of fortification programs for each food and country, where data are available. You can click on any highlighted text, numbers, or nutrients within the dashboard to view more detailed information about your selection.
The each country’s dashboard can also be downloaded by clicking the “Download PDF” button at the top of the visualization window.
All visualizations on the GFDx website includes filters located on the right-hand panel. You can filter data by income status, region, country, legislation status, food vehicle, unit of measurement, and data year(s). To view data for specific countries, you can click on each county on the map or search for a country using the search bar.
Once you’ve applied the desired filters, you download the results by following these steps:
1. Click on the “Data” tab at the bottom of the visualization window.
2. Hover over the header row of the table until an ellipses (three dots […]) appears.
3. Click on “more options” and a drop-down menu will appear. Select “Export data.”
4. In the new window, select the option, “data with current layout” and click the “Export” button.
Full datasets: Visit the “Download Datasets” page where you can download the full GFDx dataset as a CSV files in row- and column-based format.
Country Data: Click on the “Download the PDF” button at the top of the visualization window.
Global Data Visualizations: Follow these steps to download data from the visualization as an Excel or CSV file:
1. Click on the “Data” tab at the bottom of the visualization window.
2. Hover over the header row of the table until an ellipses (three dots […]) appears.
3. Click on “more options” and a drop-down menu will appear. Select “Export data.”
4. In the new window, select the export format that best supports your needs and click the “Export” button.
Ideas and suggestions
While we recognize other foods are often fortified, there are currently no plans to include other fortified foods. However, in the future, GFDx may consider expansion to include other foods, condiments, and beverages such as sugar, bouillon cubes, and dairy products.
The GFDx website does not currently have a querying visualization feature in which multiple countries, foods, and indicators can be selected at once for comparison from a single map. However, to make comparisons across counters, the full GFDx dataset can be downloaded here for offline analysis.