The Canadian government will invest Canadian $3.2 million until 2020 for this initiative.
Nutrition International has launched a new initiative in Bangladesh to improve nutrition for women, adolescent girls and newborns. The ‘Right Start Initiative’ is aimed at reducing anaemia, complications and deaths during pregnancy and delivery for mothers, and low birth weight and neural tube defects such as spina bifida in newborns.
Nutrition International, formerly known as the Micronutrient Initiative, has been supporting government efforts to address malnutrition for millions of Bangladeshi people for more than 20 years.
The Canadian government will invest Canadian $3.2 million until 2020 for this initiative that also seeks to reduce stunting in children under five years of age. The initiative was launched by the State Minister for Health Zahid Maleque along with the organisation’s President and CEO Joel Spicer.
Nutrition International hopes to build the capacity of healthcare service providers to promote and deliver interventions to improve care for pregnant mothers, reducing risks to their health and the health of their newborns.
It will also work with the government and the Ministry of Food and Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs to ensure that food-based social safety net programme beneficiaries receive rice fortified with iron, folic acid and other micronutrients to reduce the risk of iron deficiency anaemia and folate deficiency in women of reproductive age and adolescent girls.
