The World Health Assembly (WHA) and the UNICEF Executive Board adopted the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding in the year 2002. The Global Strategy has a framework of action on 10 indicators of policy and programmes to improve optimal breastfeeding and infant & young child feeding practices. It calls for urgent action by all Member States to develop, implement, monitor and evaluate a comprehensive policy and a plan of action on the global strategy to achieve a reduction in child malnutrition and mortality.
The World Health Organisation in 2003 launched the “Infant and Young Child Feeding: A tool for assessing national practices, policies and programmes”, and in 2007 a Planning Guide for implementation of Global Strategy. In May 2005, the World Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA 58.32 that called upon Member States to assure resources for plans of action for improving infant and young child feeding practices whilst avoiding any conflicts of interest in the child health programmes.
The WBTi used the questionnaire and other materials from the WHO tool for national assessment and adapted it based on the feedback from countries in all regions of the world including Latin America, Arab World, Afrique, Oceania, Asia and Africa. BPNI team led the adaptation process guided by the global group. The BPNI launched the WBTi tool in Bangladesh in 2004 and all South Asian countries used it then onwards. BPNI launched it globally in 2008-09.
The BPNI also developed a training programme to build the capacity of regional/country groups/ individuals to lead the WBTi process. It addressed understanding various indicators, identifying gaps, developing recommendations and how to develop a plan of action and budget it. The BPNI also conceptualised and developed the WBTi web-tool that provides objective scoring and colour coding based on the weightage of each indicator & the WBTi guideline. A framework assists countries to develop and or print of a national report & a report card. Further, BPNI developed yet another software tool the ‘World Breastfeeding Costing Initiative (WBCi)’ that helps to generate local, real time annual/multi-year budgetary plans.
The World Health Assembly in 2012 set targets for nutrition by 2025 that include increased exclusive breastfeeding rates to at least 50%. To achieve this target the 'Global Breastfeeding Collective' was launched in August 2017, led by UNICEF and WHO. The International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) is a member of the Collective, whose mission is to rally political, legal, financial and public support for breastfeeding, which will benefit mothers, children and society.
The Collective has launched a call to action, which has 7 indicators. One of the seven indicators is to track progress on policies, programmes and funding using the WBTi. The target: At least three-quarters of the countries of the world should be able to conduct a WBTi assessment every five years by 2030.