In 2017, IFPRI partnered with Wageningen University & Research on a five-year Food Systems for Healthier Diets project, launched in Bangladesh and several other countries globally. The program focuses on food systems through the agri-food value chains impact pathway and the associated policy enabling required to accelerate food system innovation, scaling, and anchoring.
On October 1, 2019, the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) signed a three-year memorandum of understanding (MOU), which will include a broad array of research and capacity strengthening activities under two flagships: (1) food systems for healthier diets (flagship 1), and (2) food safety (flagship 3). IFPRI's Director General Shenggen Fan and icddr,b Executive Director John Clemens formalized the partnership.
The first study under this collaboration is, “Consumers’ Food Preferences and Dietary Risks in Changing Food Environment in Bangladesh: An MSc Grant Scheme,” which intends to support six master’s-level research students from Bangladesh who will focus their studies on food systems. In the future, a selection process will be held among public universities in Bangladesh to choose the students.