10 June 2013. Dhaka. Mahabub Hossain, Executive Director of BRAC has been nominated as the member of a very high level global panel on agriculture and food systems for nutrition.

On 7 October, 2012 Justine Greening, the Secretary of State for International Development, UK,  opened this "Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition" with the following members:

Sir John Beddington (co-chair), former chief scientific officer of the UK government; John Kufuor (co-chair), former president of Ghana;  Akin Adesina (member), federal minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nigeria; Mahabub Hossain (member), executive director, BRAC, Bangladesh; Jane Karku (member), president of Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA); Rachel Kyte (member), vice president of World Bank and chair of CGIAR Fund Council; Mauricio Antonio Lopez (member) president of EMBRAPA, Brazil; K Srinath Reddy (member), president of Public Health Foundation, India; Jose Graziano da Silva (member), director general of FAO; and Roda Peace Tumusiime (member) commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, African Union.

The panel, during their three year tenure, will provide technical leadership based on an assessment of the available evidence, guide country level investments and policies in agriculture and nutrition, and commission new research and evidence generation. The panel, supported by a secretariat located at DFID, London, UK, is expected to meet annually between 2013-2015 and report at least three times to the international community.

On 8th June, 2013, the UK government, as the chair of G8, convened a summit, "Nutrition for Growth: Beating Hunger through Business and Science" to harness commitment from national governments, donors, business communities, and civil society organisations to place a greater emphasis on proper nutrition in the global development agenda.
During the summit, UK Aid, Children's Investment Fund, and the government of Brazil initiated the "Global Nutrition for Growth Compact" comprising of the following goals for 2020:

a) To ensure that at least 500 million pregnant women and children under-two years of age are reached with effective nutrition interventions.

b) To reduce the number of stunted children under-five by at least 20 million.

c) To save the lives of at least 1.7 million children under-five by preventing stunting, encouraging more mothers to breastfeed, and increasing treatment of severe acute malnutrition.

The Global Nutrition for Growth Compact was endorsed by 90 stakeholders who attended the summit, including governments from 20 countries (Bangladesh was represented by the Minister of Health and Family Welfare), and 28 business and science organisations. The governments of 14 countries entered into a commitment to increase domestic resources invested in scaling up national nutritional plans. The donors pledged an estimated USD 19 billion to contribute towards improved nutritional outcomes from nutrition sensitive investments from 2013 - 2020. The Compact will launch an annual global report on nutrition from 2014, together with online annual publication of plans, resource spending, and progress updates.