WFP Bhutan Country Brief, January 2021

Highlights

WFP held consultations with various government and UN stakeholders for developing a social behaviour change communication strategy to improve dietary and physical practices among school-aged children in Bhutan. A WFP-supported education and public information series called “Zhego Delek” published in the national newspaper,
Kuensel, raised awareness on the importance of nutritious food consumption and risks around food adulteration. On the agriculture front, WFP-supported farmers continued receiving support to enable them to harvest bountiful yields and earn cash. WFP also concluded the Multi-Partner Trust Fund project that benefitted over 3,300 farmers and created 668 job opportunities.

Operational Updates

1. WFP in collaboration with the School Health and Nutrition Division, Ministry of Education, and Department of Public Health, Ministry of Health is developing a social behaviour change communication strategy that will help improve dietary and physical practices among school-aged children in Bhutan. WFP consulted with stakeholders from various fields including government agencies, civil society organizations and private sectors. WFP held further consultation with stakeholders supporting persons with disabilities, nuns and monks, and initiatives in other countries such as the Eat Right initiative in India. WFP is supporting the design of guidelines and questionnaires for formative research to understand the behaviour of Bhutanese children better. These guidelines will be tested in the field.
   WFP also supported the formation of a multi-sectoral SBCC task force including the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture and Forests.

2. WFP, in collaboration with the Bhutan Agriculture and Food Regulatory Authority (BAFRA) started a consumer education series called “Zhego Delek” by publishing the first article in the national newspaper, Kuensel. Since COVID-19 highlighted the importance of hygiene, food safety and nutrition, the series of educational brochures promote safe and nutritious food consumption as well as generate awareness about food adulteration risks.

3.WFP corporately released a shorter version of a film on rice fortification that generated awareness of Bhutan’s work on the fortification front and its impact. The film also raised awareness on how WFP’s assistance to the Government on the fortification work has played an instrumental role in ensuring that Bhutan no longer has cases of beriberi - a disease caused by Vitamin B1 deficiency.

1. The smallholder farmers in the WFP-supported districts of Trongsa and Zhemgang continued to produce good quality fresh vegetables for local consumption as well as for sales in local, district and national markets. Those farmers were able to sell 15 mt of vegetables in Thimphu market while selling over 52 mt of vegetables in local, district and inter-district markets.

2. In those districts mentioned above, the ‘farm to school’ linking program continued to receive support to renew the annual contracts for the supply of fresh local vegetables to the schools. Both the farmers and schools continue to support this program through their participation in the contractual agreement.

3. WFP submitted the annual report for the MultiPartner Trust Fund project titled “Protecting livelihoods and reinforcing the tourism and agriculture sectors in Bhutan”. In partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests and the local Government, two poor districts of Zhemgang and Samtse were supported in the production of safe and nutritious vegetables.

4. The intervention enhanced local vegetable production while improving the linkages of farmers to markets.
   About 3,340 smallholder farmers and their household members benefitted from this project, through enhanced production and increased sales and income from their farm produce. There has been an increase by at least 20 percent in production compared to previous years and at least 668 full-time jobs were created for the farmers.

5. Even though Bhutan is exemplary in responding to COVID-19, the pandemic is reversing the steady development growth and affecting the livelihoods of a majority of the population. Therefore, WFP started to attend to the urgent capacity gaps in pandemic preparedness including the revision of the Roadmap for Disaster Risk Management in Bhutan, which will be expanded to also cover pandemic preparedness.