How does GFDx classify countries and territories?

As of January 2025, GFDx includes 196 states in its database, criteria being: full members of the United Nations (UN) (193), permanent UN observer states (2, Vatican City and State of Palestine), and states recognized by at least 50% of other UN full member states (1, Republic of Kosovo). We do not include territories (non-self-governing states) in GFDx as they are unlikely to have separate legislation and given complications with disaggregating data from their administrative countries. We take country names and their spellings from the UN member states listings.

How are countries classified into geographic regions?

We used the United Nations classification for geographical regions (Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania) to classify countries by geographical region.

How are countries classified by income status?

We use the World Bank income classification (low income, lower middle income, upper middle income, high income) to classify countries by income status. This classification can change and is updated on the GFDx website annually.

How does GFDx collect the data presented on the website?                                                               

We use a combination of primary and secondary data to populate our database. All GFDx data points are verified and fully referenced, and we maintain copies of all references. With a few exceptions, secondary data sources (e.g. an article mentioning a country legislation or survey result) are not used. We make every attempt to ensure all data included meet our inclusion criteria and have a source, however, we recognize that occasionally there may be erroneous data presented in the GFDx website. We encourage GFDx users to provide updates or corrections to country data. If you have data to contribute, or corrections to suggest, please go here.

GFDx survey to all countries included in the GFDx:

Starting in 2018, the GFDx’s main tool to collect and verify data is a survey on all foods and all indicators, which is collectively sent out by the GFDx Secretariat, to all countries included in GFDx. It is sent to a variety of contacts in each country including relevant government departments, industry representatives, and advocacy and program support partners. The data are reviewed and vetted by GFDx data stewards, including seeking clarification from country respondents as needed.

If you would like to respond to the survey for your country, please contact us at info@fortificationdata.org.

Desk review and partner databases:

To complement information collected through the GFDx survey, we also conduct online desk reviews and include information derived from partner databases..

Availability of maize flour, oil, rice, and wheat flour GFDx is aggregated from the Supply Utilization Accounts: Food Supply – Crops Primary Equivalent database of Food and Agriculture Organization the (FAO) of the United Nations. Salt intake data are converted from sodium intake data in Table 2 of Powles 2013. To calculate salt intake, sodium intake is multiplied by 2.542, according to Land 2014. Population coverage data for fortified salt are taken from UNICEF’s global database on Household Consumption of Iodized Salt.

When available for a country, GFDx also extracts nationally representative food coverage data from FAO/WHO’s Global Individual Food consumption data Tool (GIFT).

At this time, the online desk review is limited to maize flour, rice, and wheat flour. We search several online databases for legislation and standards documents, external and import monitoring protocols, and fortification quality and coverage documents and surveys. For the list of keywords and online databases searched, please download here.

Additionally, we may also receive information directly from national and partner contacts outside of our regular survey. This may occur during country visits by the GFDx Secretariat or other development partners, or as personal email communications. If relevant to GFDx indicators and criteria, information received informally in this manner is also eligible for inclusion in GFDx.

Information about all the indicators GFDx uses to track and measure food fortification programs globally is provided on the List of Indicators page.

A comprehensive data dictionary containing all indicator definitions and data inclusion criteria is available here.

How should I cite the GFDx website?

We suggest using the following citation for the general website: Global Fortification Data Exchange. Accessed dd/mm/yyyy. [https://www.fortificationdata.org.]

To cite a specific map or visualization within the GFDx, we suggest using the following citation: Global Fortification Data Exchange. “Name of visualization.” Accessed dd/mm/yyyy. [https://www.fortificationdata.org.]