LIFT launched new programmes to improve the nutrition, incomes and resilience of people living in Chin State in Hakha on February 23.
LIFT will invest around USD 21 million on programmes in Chin State until 2019 delivering rural financial services, nutrition education, agriculture extension services and support to agriculture value chains.
The programmes target communities who face significant challenges living in remote areas with low food security and poor access to services, and are implemented by local and international partners. LIFT’s new Chin State programme builds on the work funded by LIFT in Chin State since 2011. Learnings from the 2011-2015 Chin programmes are being applied to the new LIFT-funded programmes, particularly how agriculture and nutrition initiatives can be integrated.
At the event in Hakha, European Union Ambassador His Excellency Roland Kobia announced that LIFT’s donors had decided to commit USD 9 million to a Maternal and Child Cash Transfer (MCCT) programme for Chin State led by the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement’s Department of Social Welfare (DSW) to improve the nutrition of mothers and their children in the critical first 1,000 days of life.
He said the Chin MCCT programme was a strategic investment in nutrition that involved different ministries and ministerial departments working together at the central, regional and township levels and this collaboration was in line with the message delivered by State Counsellor Her Excellency Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Pakokku on January 25 that improving nutrition needs to be addressed by different ministries in a coordinated manner.
“This is an ambitious programme and a necessary programme. It comes at a time when LIFT should continue to work closely with Government and in support of Government programmes and policies,” Mr Kobia said
The MCCT programme will deliver monthly cash transfers of 15,000 MMK to pregnant women and new mothers for them to purchase nutritious food and access health services for themselves and their children.
A further USD 3 million will be invested in training about health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene that will be delivered by partners of The Three Millenium Development Fund (3MDG) to support the MCCT programme, ensuring mothers receiving cash know what to buy to best support the nutrition of themselves and their children.
LIFT Donor Consortium representative and USAID’s Mission Director in Myanmar Teresa McGhie spoke at the launch event about the importance of children receiving quality nutrition during the first 1,000 days of life.
“Stunting rates among children are reduced when they receive good nutrition in the critical first 1,000 days of life – from conception until the child is two years old. The evidence is clear that children who get the right nutrition in the first 1,000 days are 10 times less likely to die of childhood disease, will complete more grades at school and earn up to 21% more as a result as adults,” she said.
The launch event in Hakha was opened by Chin State Chief Minister His Excellency Salai Lin Luai and attended by Union and State government representatives, LIFT donor country representatives, implementing partners and stakeholders from Chin State.
Representatives from three of LIFT’s 13 donor countries – the European Union, the United States and Australia – participated in the launch event in Hakha and visited LIFT project villages in northern Chin State where they met and spoke with villagers about the issues they faced.
LIFT, 3MDG and implementing partners including GRET, Chin Microfinance Institution, CORAD, SWISSAID, Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children International, the International Office of Migration, DSW, KMSS, Myanmar Institute for Integrated Development (MIID) and the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) presented information about their Chin projects at a market place at the launch event.
After lunch, people attending the event took part in a quiz about nutrition, listened to panel discussions about migration, and on the relationship between nutrition and agriculture. CRS prepared a play ‘Midwives and Mothers’ about the challenges of incorporating good nutrition into lives.
