Around 90 high officials from Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), Statistics and Informatics Division (SID) and relevant line departments participated in the inception workshop of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded FAO project contributing to ‘Strengthening Agriculture Market Information System in Bangladesh (AMIS)’, jointly organized by FAO and BBS, and held at BBS conference room on Sunday, 28 June 2015.

AMIS Bangladesh will help strengthen evidence-based decision making processes as part of the overall  AMIS framework - launched in 2011- an interagency platform with participation of 28 countries.  The platform was originally create to enhance food market transparency and encourage coordination of policy action in response to market uncertainty.   The Bangladesh project emphasises enhancing the institutional, methodological and human resource capacity in Bangladesh for producing data and information on production, crop forecasts and food stocks with better quality, standardisation and timeliness with a particular focus on rice, wheat, maize and potato.

A keynote presentation on the project was given by Bidhan Baral, National Project Director, AMIS and Joint Director, Agri. Wing, BBS.

In opening her remarks, Kaniz Fatema, ndc, Secretary, SID, and chief guest at the event said that economic development of Bangladesh heavily relies on better planning with reliable statistics. She hoped that AMIS will make a significant contribution to achieving goals of National Strategy for Development of Statistics (NSDS), along with other major initiatives taken up by BBS. She also welcomed FAO’s continuing financial and technical support– and commended the continuing efforts to strengthen capacity of agriculture and rural statistics of Bangladesh.

In discussing, Mike Robson, FAO Representative in Bangladesh said that AMIS is one contribution towards achieving the goals of the National Statistics Development Strategy in the important agriculture sector.  More generally FAO in Bangladesh has been providing a range of technical assistance in the field of statistics - to assess needs for strengthening the agricultural statistics sector, to develop plans to address gaps, and to support the improved development of capacity in key technical areas (such as preparation of food balance sheets; harmonization of methods; and planning for the next agriculture census, 2018).  

Closing remarks were made by Mohammad Abdul Wazed, newly appointed DG, BBS, and Md. Baitul Amin Bhuiyan, DDG, BBS.

With a budget of US$ 847,000 over 18 months, AMIS brings together a group of government agencies - DAE, DAM, FPMU, SPARRSO (remote sensing), and Bangladesh Meteorological Department - under the overall sponsorship of SID and coordination of BBS,  in implementing the project activities.

For more:

AMIS website: www.amis-outlook.org

AMIS Website Bangladesh: www.amis-outlook.org/technical/bangladesh/en/