BGMEA, GAIN team up to promote health status of apparel workers
They will make mechanisms to improve workers’ access to nutritious food by establishing “Fair Price Shop” at factory premises
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) joined hands with Geneva-based non-profit foundation Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) to work on improving the health status of the country's readymade workers.
To this end, the two organisations signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the BGMEA office on Wednesday.
Faruque Hassan, president of BGMEA, and Rudaba Khondker, country director of GAIN, signed the agreement on behalf of their sides, said a press release.
Under the MoU, there will be collaboration to create an enabling environment for ensuring proper nutrition of the RMG workers in the future. The two sides will provide technical guidance to strengthen the institutional capacity of the National WFN Alliance for scaling up nutrition activities for workers' well-being.
The two will make collective approaches and mechanisms to improve workers' access to affordable, nutritious, and safe food by establishing "Fair Price Shop" at factory premises.
They will collaborate to create an enabling environment to provide nutrition services and micronutrient supplements to workers from various formal and informal sectors.
Through this partnership, the two sides will collaborate and leverage services for improving the nutritional status of RMG workers in Bangladesh.
Thus, it will ultimately contribute to achieving the goal of the 2nd National Plan of Action for Nutrition, as well as fulfil UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 3 (Health and Wellbeing), SGD 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth).
Mohammad Monower Hossain, joint secretary of BGMEA, Moniruzzaman Bipul, Portfolio Lead, Drivers of Food Systems Change, GAIN, GM Reza Sumon, project manager, GAIN and others were present in the signing ceremony.
Since launched at the UN in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition, GAIN's mission is to improve the consumption of healthier diets for all, especially the most vulnerable, by improving the availability, affordability, desirability, and sustainability of nutritious and safe foods and reducing the consumption of unhealthy and unsafe foods.