Addressing COVID-related Under Nutrition

This project aims to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable and hard-to-reach people especially women newborns children and adolescent girls belonging to host communities in the Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh. The project offers support in response to undernutrition in these communities related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Project activities include: (1) training frontline health workers on how to provide quality nutrition services to vulnerable women men girls and boys; (2) training officials of relevant ministries on developing a coordinated gender-responsive and environmentally-friendly behaviour change communication package for improving the nutritional status of hard-to-reach communities; (3) providing technical assistance to Bangladesh’s Department of Environment and Ministry of Women’s and Children’s Affairs on promoting adolescent nutrition and services to address gender-based violence; (4) procuring fortified rice for selected social safety net programs that target poor and vulnerable groups including women of reproductive age and children; and (5) conducting advocacy with key decision makers on recommendations for scaling up gender-responsive nutrition programs which target poor and vulnerable groups especially children under five years of age and pregnant and lactating women. This project is expected to benefit about 3 million people living in the eight sub-districts of Cox’s Bazar.. It includes 165 000 pregnant and lactating women 570 000 children under 5 years of age and 131 000 adolescent girls and boys. The project also targets selected social safety net programs in Cox’s Bazar through which an estimated 455 000 of the most poor and vulnerable people including 113 000 women of reproductive age can receive fortified rice

Expected outcomes of this project include: (1) improved provision and uptake of essential gender-responsive nutrition services by the public health systems for pregnant and lactating women adolescents and children under five in Cox's Bazar; (2) enhanced implementation of gender-responsive multisectoral nutrition action plans by priority ministries at district and upazila level in Cox's Bazar; and (3) improved reach and quality of social safety net programmes for pregnant and lactating women and children under 5 in Cox's Bazar