Dhaka, 9 July, Abnews: “It is expected that the fourth edition of the ‘Field guide training manual’ will guide NoboJatra project team to accelerate actions to integrate thousands of poor producers into the markets, the most pressing needs felt by the producers themselves in disaster prone southern coastal areas of Bangladesh”, said Dan Norell, Senior Technical Adviser from World Vision US, while handing the manual over to the project team. He also expressed that market linkages potentially benefit the poor producers by improving their economic and nutrition condition beyond the life time of the project.
In the day long refresher workshop on 1 July 2018 atCSS Ava Center, Khulna, staffs from World Vision Bangladesh, Winrock International, and CODEC – its local implementing partner participated.For next two years, the project team will be working to improve the economic status of the extremely poor producer families so that they can consume diversified nutritious food and reduce stunting of their children.
USAID funded ‘NoboJatra’ – a FFP Title II Development Food Security Activity led by World Vision Bangladesh along with Winrock International – its consortium partnerhas been working in four Upazilas of the southwest coastal areas of Bangladesh, namelyDacope and Koyra of Khulna, and Shyamnagar and Kaliganj of Shatkhira districts since 2015 to improve gender equitable food security, nutrition and resilience of the vulnerable people.
The workshop was inaugurated bySarder Jahangir Hossain, Deputy Chief of Party, NoboJatra. He referenced mid-term evaluation report of the project and has particularly appreciated the team members in the Upazilas for their commendable efforts put forward for undertaking project activities, and building strengthened relationships with government counterparts and market actors. Bakaul Islam, Team Leader, Winrock International andDan Norell, Senior Technical Advisor from World Vision US, among others, were present in the workshop.Extremely poor producers can be engaged in the field for round the year production of diversified and nutritious food as part of Nutrition Sensitive Programming through application of the knowledge explained in the “field guide training manual”. Through facilitation of market linkages, their small quantities of production are aggregated for bigger markets and buyers, ultimately affecting their family consumption of diversified food and improvement in nutritional status. Some of the tools and worksheets practiced by the participants in the workshop are on Buyer & Supplier Linkages to Extremely Poor Producers, Producer-to-Producer Linkages, Win-Win Relationships, Buyer and Supplier Linkages to Extremely Poor Producers, Facilitating Trust, Women’s Participation Improvement, Producer to Producer Facilitation, and Producer to producer Linkage Assessment.
The workshop has been facilitated by NoboJatra – Winrock International team in Khulna and focused on some tools globally adopted and practiced for linking extremely poor producers to different actors of the market system– traders, buyers, input suppliers, and local service providers. “These tools have potential to bring about a systematic and sustainable change in business pattern of input suppliers, retailers, buyers and producers. The target actors are also trained on relevant trainingfocused on production technologiesin collaboration with respective departments of the government of Bangladesh.” said Bakaul Islam, the key facilitator of the workshop.
Participants made their individual plans to utilize learning from the day long workshop, the effectiveness of which was demonstrated by their comments. “New and updated tools and ideas have been shared here through which we can practically link the producers with different actors such as suppliers and buyers. We are hopeful that the project itself will work well even after it ends in 2020”, said Farida Yesmin, one of the participants.
ABN/Adrian/Jasim/AD