Increased restrictions on international migration by primary host countries may affect food security in high-migrant source countries like Bangladesh, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) suggests in its latest report.
The concern was raised in 2018 Global Food Policy Report, which was launched by IFPRI at an event at a city hotel in the capital on Thursday. Each year, the Global Food Policy Report assesses major developments and events in food policy around the developing world.
On linkages between international migration and threat to food security, the report points out that food insecure population range between 10 and 15 percent in migrant-source countries like Bangladesh.
Akhter Ahmed, IFPRI country representative in Bangladesh, said foreign remittances from migrant Bangladeshi workers play a key role in the domestic economy and food security for migrant source families.
According to the 2018 report, the rise of isolationism and protectionism reflected in the US’s withdrawal from multilateral trade and climate agreements, the UK’s exit from the EU, and growing anti-immigration rhetoric in developed countries threaten to slow the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and improved food security and nutrition.
“Policies that encouraged globalisation through more open trade, migration, and knowledge-sharing have been critical to recent unprecedented reductions in hunger and poverty,” the report quoted IFPRI director general Shenggen Fan as saying.
“Enacting policies to leverage the benefits of globalization while minimizing the risks that fuel antiglobalism will be critical to meet the Sustainable Development Goals to end hunger and poverty by 2030,” he said.
Any drastic changes in international migration policies in host countries with large Bangladeshi population may pose a challenge to the food security of those families, he said.
Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury attended the function as the chief guest. Prime Minister’s Economic Affairs Adviser Dr Mashiur Rahman was the special guest at the programme.
Dr M. A. Sattar Mandal, emeritus professor at the Department of Agricultural Economics and former Vice-Chancellor of Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), presided over the report launching event.
The report suggests that migration within the country’s borders can also improve food security.
A project that gave food-insecure households in northwest Bangladesh money for bus tickets—less than $9 per potential migrant—during the lean season led to permanent increases in seasonal migration as well as in per capita consumption among migrant households.
However, the propensity to migrate from rural areas in Bangladesh is low for the poorest households and then increases rapidly at higher income levels, the report said.
“Bangladesh has achieved one of the fastest and most prolonged reductions in child stunting in the world,” the IFPRI country representative said, adding that the government’s embrace of social policies rooted in research and evidence has been central to the progress achieved in the last couple of years.
“Social protection programs covered 28 percent of Bangladeshi households and accounted for nearly 2.2 percent of GDP in 2016. With its National Social Security Strategy, the government’s initiative to further widen the scope of social protection programs to take a lifecycle approach, such as through the new Child Benefit Program, is a welcome step,” he added.
This article was originally published in The Daily Sun on 04 May 2018.