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WFP Bhutan Country Brief, August 2022

Countries
Bhutan
Sources
WFP
Publication date
Origin
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Highlights

The new WFP Bhutan Country Director and Representative, Ms Carrie Morrison, presented her credentials to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Tandi Dorji.

WFP finalised and submitted the Disaster Risk Management Roadmap for Bhutan to the Royal Government of Bhutan (RGoB) for endorsement.

Operational Update

• On 31 August, the new WFP Country Director and Representative, Ms. Carrie Morrison, presented her credentials to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Tandi Dorji. A press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the appointment of a WFP Country Director in Bhutan after a gap of more than a decade was indicative of WFP’s renewed commitment to support Bhutan. Today, WFP partners with the RGoB in climate change resilience, disaster risk reduction, food systems strengthening and nutrition security, including support for school feeding and nutrition.

• WFP, with support from the Gross National Happiness Commission, submitted a concept note to the Adaptation Fund for innovative adaptation financing to build the resilience and adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers in Bhutan. WFP and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests (MoAF) aim to enhance the resilience of smallholder farmers to key climate risks and food insecurity, through:

  1. Strengthening climate-resilient agricultural practices to underpin integrated climate risk management by smallholder farmers;

  2. Rolling out innovative climate risk transfer mechanisms and building smallholder farmers’ resilience through an integrated approach; and 3. Institutionalising innovative climate risk management for long-term sustainability.

  3. Under this initiative, WFP and MoAF are planning to support climate-vulnerable and poor smallholder farmers in up to six districts, with an emphasis on women, youth and the most vulnerable groups in 10,000 households.

• Key preliminary findings from WFP’s formative research on social and behaviour change (SBC) for nutrition were presented to the Ministry of Education. The qualitative research was carried out with school-aged children and their influencers to gain insights into their food consumption behaviour. The research involved 25 schools in three cultural and climactic regions across the country, and the results will inform the national social behaviour change strategy for nutrition.