Speakers have urged the government to conduct an immediate assessment on nutrition status of the country to prepare right kinds of social protection programmes for the poor people.
The national food and nutrition policy needs an emergency reform, instead of waiting for the 8th Five Year Plan, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic as people are going through an economic shock, they said.
They also emphasized on political commitment and ensuring governance in implementation of the social protection programmes successfully.
They made the observations at a webinar on 'Nutrition Sensitive Social Protection in the Context of Bangladesh' organized by Press Institute Bangladesh (PIB) with support of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Monday.
Mizanul Haque Kazol, National Poverty and Social Protection Policy Advisor of the FAO, made the keynote presentation on 'Social Protection for Improved Nutrition in the Context of Bangladesh' at a technical session.
Naoki Minamiguchi, Chief Technical Advisor of MUCH project, FAO, and Feroz Al Mahmud, Research Director of the Ministry of Food, addressed the webinar with Zafar Wazed, Director General of PIB, in the chair.
Some 35 journalists covering the health and agriculture issues took part in the webinar, observing that social protection is one of the major tools to combat malnutrition and it is an investment for the government.
Social protection is particularly needed during the pandemic to bring back the poor people who slipped to poverty due to the economic downturn, they said.
They observed that high rate of leakage in implementation of about 125 social protection programmes by 18 ministries was making those ineffective due to lack of punishment system.
Quoting a research conducted by BRAC on 'Economic Impact of Covid-19 and Way Forward for Bangladesh', Mizanul Haque said that due to Covid-19, some 95 percent households experienced income losses, 51 per cent households' income reduced to almost zero, 62 per cent had less income, 3.0 per cent had no food, 16 per cent had food for 1-3 days, and 22 per cent people had food for 30 days.
Referring to various studies, Mr. Mizan said the poverty rate was 20.5 per cent while extreme poverty was 10.5 per cent. But another 20 per cent people have slipped to the poverty during the pandemic.
The nutrition status has worsened putting children at an alarming state, he added.
Mr. Mizan also mentioned that the government adopted the social security strategy in the year 2015 and the life cycle approach was included in the strategy as part of bringing reform in the existing social protection system.
He highlighted some of the weaknesses of the social protection strategy which includes duplication in the selection of beneficiaries due to lack of monitoring, insufficient allowance against the requirement of the poor, lack of coordination among the implementing ministries and institutions and inadequate allowance for the child, elderly people and persons with disabilities, low coverage.
To improve nutrition situation, it requires delivery of right kinds of food at the right place at the right time and at a fair price, he added.
To make diversified food available to people instead of rice only, he said the marketing system, supply and value chain, and the processing industry needs to be improved.
In his presentation, Mr. Minamiguchi said that the social protection was one of the main pillars to address the second country investment plan on nutrition sensitive food system.
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