Bi weekly knowledge sharing Virtual Seminar Session
The 3rd Bi-Weekly Knowledge Sharing Virtual Seminar Session on "Urban Health and Nutrition", organized by the Bangladesh Urban Health Network (BUHN), was successfully held on January 14, 2025, from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM (BST) via the Zoom platform. This highly engaging and informative session was expertly moderated by Ummay Farihin Sultana, Project Manager at BUHN. The seminar provided a platform for discussions on the critical challenges of urban health and nutrition in Bangladesh, emphasizing the need for stronger knowledge bases, equitable healthcare access, and improved collaboration among stakeholders.
The session commenced with a welcome speech by Dr. Margub Aref Jahangir, Health Officer (Urban) at UNICEF Bangladesh. Dr. Jahangir highlighted key challenges of urban health and nutrition, including rapid urbanization, overcrowded slums, inadequate WASH services, and inequities in healthcare access and immunization. He urged participants to focus on actionable solutions to address these pressing issues.
The first presentation, delivered by Dr. Sohana Shafique, Project Coordinator for Urban Health at icddr,b, focused on “Urban Health and Nutrition in Bangladesh.” Dr. Shafique discussed the urgent need to address infant mortality, low immunization rates, and malnutrition in urban slums and emphasized the importance of stronger governance, inter-ministerial collaboration, and sustainable health financing to tackle these issues effectively.
The second presentation, by Dr. Shahin Akter, Technical Operation Director for Health & Nutrition at Eminence Associates for Social Development, was titled “Nutritional Mainstreaming Initiative Assessment of the User and Provider Perspectives under Urban Primary Health Care Service Delivery Project - Additional Financing (UPHCSDP-AF).” Dr. Akter underscored the necessity of enhanced nutrition counseling, improved coordination, and increased resource allocation within urban primary healthcare services to combat malnutrition among vulnerable populations in urban areas.
The panel discussion featured Md. Tareq Hasan, Project Manager for Maternal Multiple Micronutrient Supplementation at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). He shared insights into impactful urban health and nutrition initiatives, including the development of market infrastructure, plastic reduction, food safety capacity building, and maternal micronutrient supplementation through innovative market-based approaches.
During the open discussion and Q&A session, Md. Tareq Hasan raised a query about accessing urban nutrition surveillance data. In response, Dr. Sohana Shafique clarified that while such data is not yet publicly available, efforts are underway to make it accessible in the future, along with findings from icddr,b’s food systems studies that are highly relevant to urban health and nutrition.
The session chair, Mr. Md. Mamunur Rashid, Joint Secretary (World Health Branch) at the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), delivered an insightful speech emphasizing the necessity of a coordinated, multi-sectoral approach to address urban health and nutrition challenges and highlighted the importance of prevention, intersectoral collaboration, a functional referral system, and the integration of diverse stakeholder inputs under a unified platform to achieve better outcomes.
In her closing remarks, Dr. Monira Parveen, Nutrition Officer at UNICEF Bangladesh, stressed the need to share best practices to improve urban health and nutrition services. She expressed optimism about BUHN’s role in facilitating this knowledge-sharing process and extended her gratitude to the organizers and participants for their contributions to the seminar.
The seminar concluded with key decisions to address urban health and nutrition challenges, including sharing research findings, improving access to urban health data for policymakers, and incorporating obesity and lifestyle indicators in future studies. The Urban Primary Healthcare Service Delivery Project (UPHCSDP-II) will allocate more resources for nutrition and include dedicated counselors, while stakeholders will enhance coordination between City Corporations, UPHCSDP-II, and National Nutrition Services. BUHN will also organize future seminars to share best practices. Recommendations from the seminar will be formally shared with key policymakers to drive actionable changes in urban health and nutrition policies in Bangladesh. This seminar served as an essential step toward fostering collaboration, sharing insights, and building momentum for a coordinated, multi-sectoral approach to urban health and nutrition in Bangladesh.
