Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Rwanda are the first four countries to partner with Compact2025. These four countries are committed to rapidly end hunger and undernutrition and have made good progress in reducing both. To help them accelerate progress even more, Compact2025 will initiate its activities in these focal countries.
IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan and Head of Partnerships Teunis Van Rheenen met with key leaders and development partners in each focal country, including Matia Chowdhury, the Minister of Agriculture in Bangladesh, Vice President Saulos Chilima of Malawi, Prime Minister Anastase Murekezi of Rwanda, and Ato Newai Gebre-ab, chief economic advisor to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. Among other topics, they discussed the need for Compact2025 to help scale up existing programs in their countries for greater impact. Working together to do so will be top priority for Compact2025.
One of the best ways to accelerate progress is to learn from the successes of other countries. To that end, Fan and van Rheenen also visited Vietnam and Thailand to meet with stakeholders there about Compact2025. These two countries, which have made incredible progress reducing hunger and undernutrition in a short time, are considered two of the Compact2025 “learning countries”. Opportunities to share knowledge between Compact2025 focal countries and learning countries are in development.
