Five-year research program integrates all aspects of food policy to enhance food security across Bangladesh
Dhaka, Bangladesh, December 6, 2016 – The Ministry of Food announced Tuesday a new comprehensive food security research program, together with the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. About 150 representatives attended the launching ceremony, including from civil society organizations and partner institutions from Bangladesh and the United States.
The Bangladesh Integrated Food Policy Research Program, as the program is called, opens a new phase of addressing Bangladesh’s food security. It will combine policy research with capacity strengthening to tackle all four aspects of food security – availability, access, utilization, and stability – in a holistic and sustainable approach.
“Bangladesh is prone to natural disasters that can wipe out the country’s supply of cereals if they are not properly stored,” said Qamrul Islam, honorable minister of food. “Government is committed to protecting the poor and vulnerable with the use of modern engineering and information technology as part of the Digital Bangladesh vision.”
The Bangladesh Integrated Food Policy Research Program is designed to meet the food policy needs of a growing Bangladesh.
Specifically, the new program will improve the food value chain, public food stocks, disaster responses, and price stabilization with state-of-the art methods and the application of effective digital technologies. The program’s cross-cutting research activities will focus on a full spectrum of food policy considerations – storage and transport, market and policy analysis, and capacity building and outreach.
As the lead partner of the consortium, IFPRI will work with its two partners to provide overall guidance on analytical works, capacity building, and best policies and practices on grain storage management.
“In the last half of the twentieth century, food policy in most Asian countries focused on ensuring the availability of cereals,” said Dr. Shahidur Rashid, Senior Research Fellow at IFPRI and the program’s lead. “But sufficient cereal availability and rapid economic growth in many of these countries, including Bangladesh, has highlighted the need to upgrade the food policy architecture with modern technology and stronger institutions; so, it is crucial we use a sound analytical basis to build and manage the new policy architecture.”
In addition to carrying out collaborative research and analysis, the program will build capacity within key government institutions, so that the country can manage the complex issues of food policy in the context of fast economic growth. In doing so, the IFPRI-led consortium partners will build synergies with key government research institutes such as the Ministry of Food’s Food Policy Monitoring Unit and the Directorate of Food, as well as the private sector.
This program is a part of the Ministry of Food’s Modern Food Storage Facilities Project, financed by the World Bank.
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The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty. IFPRI was established in 1975 to identify and analyze alternative national and international strategies and policies for meeting the food needs of the developing world, with particular emphasis on low-income countries and on the poorer groups in those countries. www.ifpri.org.