WFP's development activities in Bangladesh aim to improve the long-term food security and nutrition of ultra poor households in the poorest and most food insecure rural areas and urban slums. WFP achieves this through supplementary feeding, nutrition education, food for assets and training, school feeding and capacity building activities.
I. Improving maternal and child nutrition
The programme supports a total of 42,809 people, promoting the nutritional status of undernourished children under two, pregnant and breast-feeding women and adolescent girls through the provision of fortified blended foods and nutrition education. The activity is accompanied by behavioural-change education to improve nutrition and hygiene practices.
The aim of WFP’s nutrition strategy in Bangladesh is to support the Government in breaking the intergenerational cycle of undernutrition by giving priority to a child’s first 1000 days of life. The Renewed Efforts Against Child Hunger and Undernutrition (REACH) and Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) initiatives provide the principal coordination mechanisms.
II. Enhancing resilience to disasters and the effects of climate change
The programme currently supports over 217,000 ultra-poor men and women through a number of schemes.
The Enhancing Resilience programme aims to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable households to disasters. It combines food and cash for work projects to build disaster resilience infrastructure, such as homestead protection and embankments, and improve disaster preparedness, response and recovery capacities. As part of this activity, WFP also responds to small and medium-scale natural disasters.
The majority of participants are ultra-poor women, because they face additional barriers in accessing income-generating opportunities and are more vulnerable than men to the consequences of natural disasters.
III. Improving food security for the ultra poor
The programme currently supports 150,000 people and aims to improve the food security and nutritional well being of ultra-poor women and their households in north-western Bangladesh, while at the same time providing valuable evidence to feed into WFP’s dialogue with the Government on safety-net reform. It is based around a 24-month cycle which features an asset grant, a monthly stipend, savings assistance, asset growth assistance and a curriculum of specialised trainings for ultra-poor women.
In 2009 WFP started its Food Security for the Ultra Poor (FSUP) project with financial assistance from the European Union for a period of four years. To date, 5,000 beneficiaries received asset grants and technical training, and 25,000 beneficiaries began receiving monthly stipends in preparation for a grant component in 2011.
IV. School feeding
The programme supports 1.2 million primary school age children in food-insecure areas.
WFP distributes fortified high-energy biscuits to rural and urban pre-primary and primary schools in areas of high poverty to provide an additional incentive for parents to keep children in school. The programme works to improve primary school enrolment, attendance and reduce dropout in selected food insecure areas and address micronutrient deficiencies and hunger among primary school children. This is complemented with a learning package to children, parents and other community members on vegetable gardening, health, nutrition and hygiene. Children are also de-wormed and WFP promotes women’s leadership in the School Management Committees.
V. Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation Assistance to the Refugees from Myanmar (PRRO)
The programme provides assistance to 31,000 refugees in two refugee camps in Cox’s Bazaar. WFP’s operation aims to sustain the nutritional status and food security of the refugee population, and improve the host population’s acceptance of refugees. People are currently assisted through four main activities: general food distribution, supplementary feeding, school feeding and food for training.
V I. Partnering with the Government to reform safety nets
In 2010, WFP began to place a greater emphasis on strengthening the capacity of the Government to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its safety net programmes through training workshops and advocacy. WFP is directly involved in assisting the Government to strengthen its Vulnerable Group Development programme and in the launching of its School Feeding programme. WFP has been implementing the VGD programme jointly with the Government since the 1970s. Over the past 10 years, WFP’s role has gradually transitioned from that of programme implementer to systems strengthener.
WFP in Bangladesh
• WFP has been assisting the poorest people of Bangladesh since 1974 and has assisted a total of 151 million people through development programmes over the past 36 years.
• WFP has been at the forefront of responding to under-nutrition and food insecurity, helping communities reduce the risks associated with climate change, in particular floods and cyclones.
• WFP has a strong track record of partnering with the Government of Bangladesh on climate change adaptation.
• Over the past 36 years -
- 26,000 km of roads and 17,000 km of embankments have been reconstructed (including raising roads above flood levels).
- 4,120 km of drainage/irrigation canals and 3,000 acres of water bodies (mainly ponds) have been re-excavated and brought back into productive use; and 38 million trees have been planted.
- 25,000 homestead raised and 1,000 emergency flood and cyclone shelters repaired.
- In 2010, WFP assisted 5 million vulnerable people, mainly women and children.