The university’s delegation arrived today March 2−3, 2023 in Dushanbe Tajikistan to participate in the IX conference of «Business and investment partnership between Russia and Tajikistan» on interregional cooperation.

Regading the visit, the rector of the university Mr. Dmitry Glushko commented:

«For us, the purpose of the visit to Tajikistan is the development of projects that the university is engaged in.

Today’s discussions were dedicated to a project on a federal and international scale — The organization of school meals. I was involved with this topic by the Ministry of Education, and now I stand in support the current work at MRSU that is conducting a joint research-study with the Republic of Tajikistan (with the support of the UN WFP mission) to develop a unified methodology for assessing the demographic and economic effect of organized meals for schoolchildren for subsequent implementation in schools.

Mr. Adham Mussalam the representative and local director of WFP in the Republic of Tajikistan, presented the experience of implementing the WFP program in Tajikistan. He stressed that this program is being implemented only with the support of the Russian Federation and the Institute of Industrial Nutrition. The experience of Mordovia is used as a model for organizing meals serving for schoolchildren, and here we are talking about 500 thousand primary school students in 2 thousand schools in Tajikistan.

For our own part, we presented the experience of organizing free hot meals in Russian schools (based on our experience in the Ministry of Education), and also discussed the research that is being carried out. Colleagues showed great interest in participating for organizing this research.

The rector of the Tajik National University, Doctor of Economics, Prof. Khushvakhtzoda Kobiljon Khushvakht noted that their medical colleagues are also ready to join this research. At the meeting with him, we agreed to develop joint and double-degree master’s programs.

We visited the Russian-Tajik school named after. Y.A.Gagarin in Dushanbe, where they met with the parental community. We discussed the need to work together and develop a methodology to assess the impact of nutrition on children’s health.

There are traditions of healthy eating, there are standards that have been developed by supervisory authorities in the field of healthcare. There is such a difficult task and big challenge — to combine all this in order to achieve the goal of organizing healthy nutrition for children’s healthy growth and development.

I am happy to see the project implemented, after passing through the difficult stages of organizations: I was involved in the preparation of an agreement by the Russian-Tajik intergovernmental commission on the construction and creation of schools, where a team was formed, and already has begun to work.

Within the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Tajikistan, we worked with the interdepartmental commission on organizing school meals. The meeting was attended by the First Deputy Minister of Health, and colleagues from other sectoral ministries. Colleagues asked us to organize a visit of a working group from the relevant departments to Mordovia, and also supported the need for a research-study.

We agreed with all our colleagues to hold an international forum on school meals for Central Asian countries in Tajikistan, Dushanbe by the month of May. Russian Ambassador to the Republic of Tajikistan S. Grigoriev supported this idea.

I am glad that the experience in the field of organizing school meals is in demand in our cooperation with Tajikistan (ministries of education, health, the national university, and the WFP office in the Republic of Tajikistan).