Food Ministry, FAO hold webinar on CIP3

The Ministry of Food, through its Food Planning and Monitoring Unit (FPMU), and the FAO-funded "Meeting the Undernutrition Challenge (MUCH) project," held its first webinar with media and civil society groups from the Chattogram and Shylet divisions on 2 March.

The meeting was part of a month-long series of events called "Divisional Level Consultation on CIP3," said a press release.

Others will take place in Rajshahi, Rangpur, Barisal, Khulna, Mymensingh, and Dhaka between 7 and 16 March. 

The webinar aimed at presenting the CIP3 to a range of stakeholders at a subnational level. This will allow them to learn about the CIP3 and help shape the process of making the document by making sure that local issues are taken into account.

Md Shahiduzzaman Faruki, director general (additional secretary) of the Food and Planning Unit, chaired the virtual meeting and delivered the welcome remarks.

Md Mizanur Rahman, a government liaison advisor for the FAO Bangladesh project, gave the first speech at the meeting.

Md Shahiduzzaman Faruki said, "The Bangladesh Third Country Investment Plan (CIP3) is a key policy-level document to address food insecurity and nutrition across the country, which is also one of the mandates of the government of Bangladesh."

Faruki said, "To succeed with the CIP3 implementation requires all of us to discuss and work together in terms of achieving food and nutrition security in Bangladesh. In line, this consultation is very important to identify the missing elements or programmes, business opportunities and also how the ongoing and planned investment activities and projects can be incorporated into the CIP3 to better depict the real situation of investment in food and nutrition security in Bangladesh."

"The government of Bangladesh has made commitments to reduce poverty and improve nutritional status by 2030 in line with the SDGs. The same is also reflected in the country's 8th five-year plan. To this end, the government has developed different policies, namely the National Food and Nutrition Security Policy and related Plan of Actions, for its successful implementation. This aims to improve the implementation of the investments in food and nutrition security in Bangladesh. In this regard, the Technical Assistance Team (TAT) of USAID and EU-supported FAO's Meeting the Undernutrition Challenge project supports the GoB in its work on the NFP and CIP3," Faruki added.

Md Mizanur Rahman said, "The global pandemic Covid-19 pandemic has seriously hampered the livelihood, food, and nutrition security around the world. Bangladesh is exactly like this.Food insecurity among low-income and disadvantaged families was found to be a serious problem during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this regard, CIP3 is to be considered a guideline for the process of overcoming the challenges caused by the pandemic, in particular food and nutrition insecurity issues, by the year 2025. And so, everyone's voice is equally important to us and to the betterment of the country. "

Key discussions of the workshop featured the CIP3 approach and methodology, sharing CIP3 preliminary results and plenary discussions on the thematic issues of primary production, market and value chain, nutrition, social protection and cross-cutting issues like gender, etc.

The Meeting the Undernutrition Challenge (MUCH) project works with the Food Nutrition and Security (FNS) core ministries, including the Ministry of Food, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, civil society organizations, and the private sector, to create a more conducive environment for the abolition of food insecurity and malnutrition.

This is done by improving: cross-sectoral and sectoral policies and investment programmes for food security and nutrition (FSN) that are gender sensitive, human and organizational resource development for FSN, financial resource allocation for FSN, inclusiveness of governance and coordination mechanisms for FSN, and comprehensiveness of information generation to support FSN policy formulation and programming.

The MUCH Technical Assistance Team provided the technical support and facilitated the workshop. Almost 92 participants took part in the virtual meeting.