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Bhutan

WFP Bhutan: Annual Country Report 2022 - Country Strategic Plan 2019 - 2023

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Overview

WFP maintained its support for Bhutan’s transition to a lower middle-income country to position itself as a strategic partner to the Royal Government of Bhutan through capacity strengthening initiatives, engagement in policy dialogue and advocacy, evidence generation, and development of innovative approaches to climate-resilient food systems, nutrition and disaster preparedness and response.

In 2022, there were major reforms in the public service geared towards systemic efficiency, accountability and coordination with the realignment of government ministries and departments. Against this backdrop, WFP continued strengthening its partnerships with the Government, other United Nations (UN) agencies, and civil society organizations (CSO) in line with WFP’s commitment to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). WFP played a key role in bringing national partners together, including the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, the Ministry of Education and Skills Development and the Ministry of Health, in addressing the nutritional needs of the people in Bhutan while building a transformative food system with a focus on smallholder farmers.

Through targeted interventions across the agriculture value chain, WFP built the production capacity of 2,855 smallholder farmers (of which 59 percent were female) in four rural districts where poverty rates were high. WFP's farm-to-school linkages provided smallholder farmers better access to market opportunities and benefited 98,502 students across 96 schools with nutritious and diverse home-grown meals. To optimize the cost-efficiency and nutritional content of school meals, the School Menu Planner (SMP) PLUS tool, an online menu creation platform, was expanded to five districts. This digital tool helped boost dietary diversity among schoolchildren and increased the utilization of locally-sourced food.

In partnership with the Government and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), WFP began the planning stage of the Building Resilient Smallholder Commercial Agriculture (BRECSA) project to build linkages between climate-responsive value chain development and market-oriented food production.
In 2022, Bhutan was confronted with socioeconomic and logistics challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, with several lockdowns in the first half of the year. WFP supported frontline emergency response agencies by addressing urgent gaps in emergency logistics and telecommunications required for operational coordination. WFP also augmented its support to strengthen the emergency preparedness and disaster risk management capacity of frontline responders with training on emergency logistics, drone technology, search and rescue and supply chain management.

WFP reinforced its efforts towards accelerating the human capital development agenda of the Government through a World Bank-funded Fill the Nutrient Gap (FNG) analysis, which generated evidence for concerted efforts among stakeholders in education, health and food systems to improve access to nutritious foods. Furthermore, WFP and the Ministry of Education carried out behavioural research to gain insights into the food consumption behaviour of schoolchildren in 25 schools across the country. The results will inform the development of a national social and behaviour change (SBC) strategy and action plan for nutrition by the first quarter of 2023.

WFP participated in the United Nations Common Country Analysis process which analyzed the prospects for sustainable development in Bhutan. This laid the foundation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2024-2028 and informed the development of WFP's next-generation CSP (2024-2028).