The Ministry of Food and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) have launched a flagship report that analyses the impact of the investments made towards solving hunger and malnutrition in Bangladesh.
The 2020 Monitoring Report (MR20) looks at the effectiveness of food and nutrition (FNS) investments over four years, from June 2016 to June 2020, and makes key recommendations towards achieving sustainable food systems, said a press release issued on Thursday.
Minister of Food Sadhan Chandra Majumder attended the launch event along with other senior government officials, as well as representatives from FAO and the donors, the United States for International Development (USAID) and the European Union (EU).
The report details progress made towards targets set out in the Country Investment Plan – Nutrition Sensitive Food Systems, known as CIP2. The overarching goal of CIP2 is to achieve improved food security and nutrition for all by making food systems nutrition-sensitive and sustainable.
FAO’s Meeting the Undernutrition Challenge (MUCH) project provided technical support to the Food Planning and Monitoring Unit (FPMU) of the Ministry of Food to produce the report.
Food Minister Sadhan said: “We have managed to decrease stunting and malnutrition in younger children and we will proportionately achieve more in terms of food security as we graduate to a middle-income country.
“We have undertaken five strategies for implementing our new food and nutrition security policy and we will implement it soon. I dedicate this plan, report, and policy to honour our Father of the Nation on the occasion of his 100th birth anniversary.”
Robert D Simpson, FAO representative in Bangladesh, praised the report for helping to monitor progress made towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of zero hunger.
Naoki Minamiguchi, the chief technical advisor of the MUCH project, said: “Given the current context, the report also considers the likely impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on food and nutrition security.”
John Smith-Sreen, the director of the Economic Growth Office of USAID Bangladesh, remarked that the success of the monitoring of food and nutrition security in Bangladesh needed to be celebrated.
“We believe that we should be sharing these lessons learned with other countries within the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.
Head of Cooperation of the Delegation of the EU to Bangladesh Maurizio Cian congratulated the government on the launch of the report and was “pleased to see it continue its efforts to produce its annual monitoring reports which have been crucial in guiding the implementation strategies and actions such as the Second Action Plan for Nutrition, the National Social Security Strategy, and the recently approved National Food and Nutrition Security Policy 2020”.
“The MR20 looks systemically into the status of FNS in Bangladesh. This is a must-read publication for any expert, practitioner, researcher, or student interested in an up-to-date FNS situation in Bangladesh,” said Dr Mosammat Nazmanara Khanum, the secretary of the Ministry of Food.
FAO has been supporting Bangladesh's efforts to alleviate food insecurity and malnutrition for a healthier, sustainable future by assisting the process of formulation and implementation of various policies, strategies, legislations, and action plans.
The Food and Nutrition Security Policy of Bangladesh is planned to be launched next month, read the press release.
