Food safety and the malnutrition in Bangladesh are endemic. The private sector must bring commercially viable innovative solutions in the market to solve these challenges, said speakers at a programme on Monday.
They said there are plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs to make significant gains in the market through innovative solutions and ensure large-scale investment for nutritious and safe food.
About 31 per cent children (aged under five) are stunted, 26 per cent deaths are caused by poor diets and 77 per cent garment workers are suffered from anemia. Investment in the sector may solve malnutrition problem and also bring Bangladesh to the super highway of development, they said.
They called on the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) for bringing innovative solutions for improved nutrition. They stressed on innovative SMEs that can provide big and inspiring investment solutions for improving nutritional status.
They made the remarks while speaking at Dhaka Roadshow titled ‘Bangladesh NutriStar: Nutrition Innovation Challenge’ at Daffodil International University (DIU) in the capital on Monday.
Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and World Food Programme (WFP) organised the event in association with DIU and Light Castle Partners.
Moderated by Bijon Islam, CEO of Light Castle Partners, Collen O’Connor, nutrition officer of WFP, Asif Iqbal, lecturer of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Daffodil International University, Syed Muntasir Ridwan, national coordinator of Sun Business Network (SBN), Bangladesh, Zia Ashraf, co-founder and COO of Chaldal.com, Subrata Kumar Kundu, co-founder and CEO of Bhalo Social Enterprise, among others, spoke at the event.
