Food and nutritional security is now become the global challenge. Within lots of initiatives and programs to achieve the sustainable development goals of UNs, it is thought to be the major obstacle. Standing at world`s eighth largest population, Bangladesh has also puts priority action on food and nutritional security.
Under this circumstance, Bangladesh chapter of Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD Bangladesh, www.ypard.net) feels necessity to work on nutrition-sensitive agriculture along with young professionals and youthful minds around the country.
YPARD Bangladesh with support from INGENAES, (Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Agricultural Extension Services) which is a USAID funded project, will work together to address this issue. The objective of this initiative is to scientists, experts, researchers, students and young professionals who are working on nutrition-based agriculture in the country will establishing a National Network on Agriculture for Nutrition (Ag4N) on mutual interest.
The respective experts feel that networking will create a platform to share information and knowledge that might be a great support for identifying challenges of food and nutritional security in the country as well as develop sustainable solutions for it.
Moreover, this networking community will cooperate in national development activities through participating in policy level while promote and bring opportunity to contribute youths with innovative ideas in the national level.
On May 20, at She-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU) in Dhaka, participants of the YPARD-INGENAES Workshop has presented these ideas and vision with an aim to setting up an agriculture for nutrition (Ag4N) platform in Bangladesh.
The workshop was started with an introductory session among the participants and the facilitator. After that Mr. Shahid Uddin Akbar, Executive Director of Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID) delivered an introductory speech towards the participants. Following him, Dr. Susmita Das, Senior Documentation Officer, Bangladesh Agriculture Council (BARC) has delivered a presentation about the background, mission and vision of YPARD as well as their motto for this Ag4N network.
The chief facilitator Andrea B. Bohn conducted the main session of the workshop focusing on PURPOSE of the P2P cycle (Purpose, principles, participants, structure and practices), who is the Associated Director of INGENAES- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign program. He lead to generate ideas, goals for future perspectives and finding ways to reach the vision of this network to work as Think Tank. F.M. Safiul Azam, Country Representative of YPARD was in total coordination of organizing this workshop.
Pro-Vice Chancellor of SAU, Dr. Sekander Ali, Associate professor Abu Noman Faruq Ahmmed, core-team members of YPARD, namely Md. Arif Khan, Mostak Ahmed, Mahbubur Rahman and other more than 20 young minds of ypard from diversified national level organizations were present in the workshop.