Public expenditure analysis in the food security and nutrition (FSN) sector is a critical component of the Second Country Investment Plan (CIP2) and contributes to the assessments of other FSN-related national policies and programmes, such as the Second National Plan of Action for Nutrition (NPAN2). The “Consultative Meeting on Public Expenditure Analysis on Food and Agriculture”, jointly organized by the Food Planning and Monitoring Unit (FPMU) of the Ministry of Food and the FAO Meeting the Undernutrition Challenge (MUCH) Project, introduced a new methodology to monitor and analyse public expenditures on food and agriculture and discussed its applicability in Bangladesh, notably for the CIP2.  Government officials engaged in the FSN Thematic Teams, including representatives from finance, social affairs and women and children’s affairs ministries, took part in the discussion and review of the methodology.

This new policy tool was developed by the FAO Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) Programme as part of its global initiative to create country-owned and sustainable policy monitoring systems and carry out a consistent set of policy and public expenditure analyses across a wide range of agricultural value chains in 16 countries. In his presentation, Mr Francisco Fontes, Policy Analyst from the FAO Headquarters in Rome, introduced MAFAP applications in Malawi illustrating the detailed composition of public expenditure analysis and resource flows towards different sectors, and identifying inadequate financial allocations in different sectors and programmes.

According to Mr Naoki Minamiguchi, FAO MUCH Chief Technical Advisor, the MAFAP method will assist the CIP2 to reclassify the FSN investments made since 2010, i.e. some 16 billion US dollars, as well as non-investment programmes such as emergency food aids, while improving the estimates of resources allocated for nutrition objectives. MUCH will also be committed to providing technical support to the Ministry of Finance for strengthening the Integrated Budget and Accounting System (iBAS) by including a FSN filter/budget code within the system so as to ensure adequate resource allocation in the FSN sector. In this regard, MAFAP tool and methodology can be a technical solution.

MUCH is financially supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Union (EU). The project is aimed at strengthening the enabling environment for eradicating food insecurity and malnutrition in Bangladesh.