The 4th National Seminar for Food Security and Nutrition under the theme “Improving Child and Maternal Nutrition in Cambodia” organized two days in Phnom Penh on 21-22 May 2012 by the Council for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) in collaboration with other Government agencies (MoH, MoP, SNEC, MAFF, MRD,....) and with support of development partners (USAID, UNICEF, WHO, WFP, and CARITAS)

1. To present and discuss current trends and challenges on child and maternal nutrition based on recent data and study results
2. To present and discuss strategies, plans and approaches to improve child and maternal nutrition in Cambodia with regards to their effectiveness and potential for scaling up
3. To explore ways to reinforce complementarities between sectors and stakeholders and to strengthen coordination at national and sub-national levels
4. To identify gaps in actions and get guidance for a road map to enhance child and maternal nutrition in Cambodia indicating roles and responsibilities of relevant government institutions “Cambodian government had a really strong will in promoting food security and nutrition especially, assure the people’s right based that the government would never let a single person dead without rice to eat,” said Samdech HUN Sen.

Prime Minister also emphasized in his opening speech that child and maternal nutrition is crucial for poverty reduction and the welfare of Cambodians and that malnutrition has high social and economic costs as it impacts educational outcome and the productivity of the future generation.
To promote food security and nutrition, Cambodian government through CARD together with relevant ministries and both internal and external institutions has prepared social protection strategies to:

1. Support the poorest among the poor and the marginal to again the poverty, food insecure and exploitation
2. Reduce disaster risks that cause people use negative solution
3. Support the poor to avoid from poverty through human resource capacity building and improve the access to health services, nutrition and educate the poor to take part actively in developing Cambodian economic and society.