CARE Bangladesh has signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)with the Institute of Public Health Nutrition (IPHN) and National Nutrition Services (NNS) recently.

This tripartite MoU marks a commitment to working together to strengthen community health systems, improve household nutrition and health behaviors, and enhance leadership and governance for improved nutrition, said CARE Bangladesh 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 1000 days. 

Professor Dr. Shah Golam Nabi, Director, IPHN, Professor Dr. Mijanur Rahman, Line Director, NNS and Dr. Ikhtiar Uddin Khandaker, Acting Deputy Country Director and Director-Health and Nutrition, CARE Bangladesh, signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organizations. 

Professor Dr. Shah Golam Nabi said 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 Professor Dr. Mijanur Rahman, Line Director, NNS.

Stating the significance of the MoU signing, Dr. Ikhtiar Uddin Khandaker, Acting Deputy Country Director and Director-Health and Nutrition, CARE Bangladesh, 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 Dr. Md. Mofijul Islam Bulbul, Program Manager, NNS; Dr. Mohammad Shoayeb, Assistant Director, IPHN; representatives from CNHA’s consortium partners (icddr,b, Jhpiego, VISCOM and mPower) and CARE staff members.