DHAKA: European Union Ambassador, Pierre Mayaudon, on Tuesday said the project financed by EU increased the nutritional status of 10,000 households directly through nutrition education.

He made the assertion while addressing assembled delegates of the closing workshop for the 'Agriculture and Nutrition Extension Project’ (ANEP) at a city hotel.

Ambassador Pierre said ‘ANEP which is closing now is a success story. I could witness during a field visit to Barisal that the project has a direct impact on the betterment of the local communities. I salute the commitment and professionalism of all those who have contributed to this achievement’.

The EU provided 3,6 million Euros (Tk 40 crore) for the three-year project, which was led by International Development Enterprises (iDE) to contribute to one of the EU’s key cooperation priorities in Bangladesh to improve food security and nutrition, said a press release.

To implement the project in Bangladesh, iDE, as lead agency, joined hands with seven other partners - CIMMYT, WorldFish, IRRI, Save the Children, CEAPRED, BES Nepal and CODEC. 

The project was implemented in a consortium approach, with staff members seconded from implementing organizations into a project management structure designed to maximize efficiency in delivery. 

The activities of this project have successfully reached over 40,000 farmer households in Bangladesh with new and emerging agricultural technologies, and increased the nutritional status of 10,000 households directly through nutrition education. 

This had a regional dimension as similar activities were also implemented in Nepal and, both Bangladesh and Nepal, benefitted from exchange visits, sharing of experience and successful technologies.

The workshop also discussed key findings and lessons learned from the ANEP Bangladesh final evaluation.

The event was hosted by senior members of the iDE and ANEP leadership team including Country Director of iDE Bangladesh Deepak Khadka, Project Coordinator of ANEP Bangladesh Richard Rose and ANEP project leader at iDE Nepal Dr. Luke Colavito.

It featured a multi-disciplinary panel discussion on technology commercialization and food security which comprised of Director of Health and Nutrition at Save the Children Michael Foley, Chief of Party at ACDI-VOCA Marie Cadrin, Food Security Advisor at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Bangladesh Arman Khan, Deputy Managing Director of RFL-PRAN Ltd Ahsan Khan Chowdhuryand Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Agronomy Division at Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) Dr. Md. Abdul Aziz.

BDST: 1615 HRS, DEC 02, 2014