CARE Bangladesh signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Thursday with the Institute of Public Health Nutrition (IPHN) and National Nutrition Services (NNS).
This tripartite MoU marks a commitment to working together to strengthen community health systems, improve household nutrition and health behaviours, and enhance leadership and governance for improved nutrition, read a press release on Saturday.
This MoU will support USAID’s Community Nutrition and Health Activity (CNHA), which aims to sustainably impact the nutrition and health outcomes of women and children in their first 1,000 days.
IPHN Director Professor Dr Shah Golam Nabi, NNS Line Director Professor Dr Mijanur Rahman, and CARE Bangladesh Acting Deputy Country Director and Director-Health and Nutrition Dr Ikhtiar Uddin Khandaker signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organisations.
Professor Dr Shah Golam Nabi remarked that he expects the MoU to enable collaboration between CARE and IPHN to generate the evidence base required to inform nutrition-related policymaking in Bangladesh.
“NNS is ready to support CNHA to implement the program and to implement our national strategies through effective coordination between different actors at the national and local level,” said NNS Line Director Professor Dr Mijanur Rahman.
Stating the significance of the MoU signing, Dr Ikhtiar Uddin Khandaker said, “CNHA has a lot of scope to identify bottlenecks and challenges and formulate evidence-based solutions to them to achieve nutrition goals.”
Among others who attended the MoU signing ceremony were NNS Programme Manager Dr Md Mofijul Islam Bulbul, IPHN Assistant Director Dr Mohammad Shoayeb, representatives from CNHA’s consortium partners (icddr,b, Jhpiego, VISCOM and mPower) and CARE staff members.
