BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health and the University of Groningen, Netherlands recently co-organised a conference titled ‘Improving Sustainable Development Goals by Enhancing Women’s Empowerment’ to stimulate closer cooperation and mutual knowledge exchange between different stakeholders in the fields of food security, agricultural development, health and nutrition, and women empowerment and to build bridges between different fields of knowledge.
The conference started with welcome remarks from Dr. Kaosar Afsana, Professor, BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University, Bangladesh and Dr. Lensink Bernardus Wander, Professor, Department of Development Economics, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. On the first day, Dr Ruhul Amin Talukder, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh Chaired the session on the intersection of women’s empowerment and the SDGs. Anne van Leeuwen, Ambassador of the Netherlands attended the inaugural dinner Dr Tahmeed Ahmed, Executive Director, icddr,b presented among others.
During the conference, distinguished panelists discussed issues related to Nutrition, Food Security, and Gender including SDG Interactions and Conceptual Framework, Women Empowerment Intervention Design, Integrated Nutrition Governance, UNICEF conceptual framework of undernutrition and utilization of health services, Prevention of diseases including life courses, Delivering health & nutrition systems.
Professor Meghna Guhathakurta, Executive Director, Research Initiatives, Bangladesh; Dr Akhter Ahmed, Country Representative, International Food Policy Research Institute, Bangladesh; Dr. Sayema Haque Bidisha, Professor Department of Economics, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh; Dr. Firdousi Naher, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh; Dr. Rudaba Khondker, Country Director, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Bangladesh; Germame Garuma Chegen, Acting State Minister of Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture, Ethiopia were present among other distinguished panelists. Dr. Sabina Faiz Rashid, Dean & Professor, BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University, Bangladesh attended the conference as a keynote speaker.