CGIAR launches the Asian Mega-Deltas Initiative in Bangladesh

CGIAR, together with government agencies and other relevant stakeholders, conducted the country launch of the Initiative on Securing the Food Systems of Asian Mega-Deltas for Climate and Livelihood Resilience (AMD) in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 10 August 2022. With the goal of promoting resilient, inclusive, and productive Asian Mega-Deltas, the AMD initiative will focus on the three main deltas in Asia, such as Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta in Bangladesh and India, Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar, and Mekong River Delta in Vietnam and Cambodia.

In her welcome message, Dr. Sonja Vermuelen, Managing Director of Genetic Innovation of CGIAR, introduced AMD “as one of the 12 multi-disciplinary Research Initiatives that will be implemented in Bangladesh by different CGIAR centers in collaboration with national stakeholders.” She shared that AMD’s main goal is to transform food systems toward greater climate resilience by removing systemic barriers at community, national and regional levels to enable the scaling of existing and emerging technologies and practices.

In his introduction of the AMD initiative, Dr. Benjamin Belton, AMD Co-Lead and Senior Scientist of WorldFish, emphasized the importance of the deltas as home to tens of millions of people, source of food and economic security beyond this population, and hotspots of biodiversity. However, he stressed that “the deltas are facing severe challenges such as shrinking and sinking due to climate change and unsustainable development.”

He added that delta resilience, inclusiveness, and productivity will be achieved through climate-smart agricultural practices and nutrition-sensitive interventions, which will help boost farm incomes, sustainability, and employment.

The launching provided a platform to build stronger partnership and great understanding of the AMD initiative among the different partners of the AMD’s five focus areas, such as: adapting deltaic production systems, nutrition-sensitive deltaic agrifood systems, de-risking delta-oriented value chains, inclusive deltaic food-systems governance, and evidence-based delta…