Joint Action for Nutrition Outcome (JANO) project recently organised a webinar to publish the findings of a study on the value chain.
The project is funded by the European Union and co-funded by the Austrian Development Cooperation. The objective of the project is to contribute to ending malnutrition of Pregnant and Lactating Women (PLW) together with addressing the nutritional needs of children under five years of age, and adolescent girls.
The project will closely work with the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) at the national, regional and local levels, to support the effective implementation of the National Plan of Action for Nutrition 2 (NPAN 2).
The study has been conducted under the JANO project to find how the cultivation of highly nutritious foods in homestead garden and rearing cattle along with ensuring safe water, cleanliness and proper sanitation can help battle malnutrition. From the study, it came that the top-ranked food items, or the most suitable food items for homestead cultivation for women, are Pumpkin, Leafy Vegetables, Tomato, Beans, Okra, Banana, Papaya, and Dairy and the highest-ranked WASH items were Sanitary Latrines and Sanitary Napkins.
The webinar was held with a view to reveal the findings of the study and seek opinions from the guests on the issue. Dr M Abdul Mueed, the Director-General of the agricultural extension department was present as the chief guest of the programme, said a statement.
The delegates of the European Union, delegates of different government and non-government organization related to the study, development partners, academicians, practitioners, experts concerned and journalists were present on the occasion.
The chief guest, special guests and other discussants emphasised the importance of ensuring safe food, including production, processing and consumption phase. It also came up that cultivation of low-cost but highly nutritious food such as moringa leaf, sweet potato, egg, fortified crop, etc is also important in addition to the study findings. Discussants also added that finding out alternative ways of producing low-cost sanitary napkins and toilets is necessary and strong support from the private sector is needed.
JANO Project is working to improve the nutrition status of 275,415 pregnant and lactating mothers and 190,322 children under the age of five in Rangpur and Nilphamari through 64 Union Parishads, 263 community clinics and 330 schools.
