The overall message is that there is no one size fits all for school feeding programs. Context is key, with different school feeding approaches being suited to different country situations. While there is no one best model, there are many good practices across programmes whose efficiencies and innovations can be usefully shared across countries. It also shows that the programmes have evolved over time, often quite rapidly; demonstrating that programming for school feeding is typically a dynamic process which benefits from ongoing learning and adaptation.
Global School Feeding Sourcebook – Lessons from 14 Countries (2016) is a comprehensive publication on the school feeding programme undertaken by the World Bank and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), in collaboration with the Partnership for Child Development (PCD), with the aim of understanding why so many poor countries were using school feeding programmes as a key part of their response to the emerging food, fuel and financial crises of 2008. The book under review indicates that fourteen countries have implemented the programme, particularly to provide operational guidelines to decision makers and practitioners’ on school feeding by analysing programmes in different countries using a standardised approach and then to compare their case studies to see what lessons can be learnt. The countries are: Botswana, Brazil, Cape Verde, Chile, Cote d’Ivoire, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Kenya, Mali, Mexico, Namibia, Nigeria and South Africa.
Accordingly, the programmes are gaining increasing recognition for their twin roles as a long-term social protection investment, as well as acting as a productive safety net for children and their families in the short-term. The research by developmental partners review that the programme was meant to help get children into schools and keep them there, increasing enrolment and reducing absenteeism; and also to contribute to their learning by overcoming hunger and enhancing cognitive abilities. The programme has been linked to job creation; agricultural sectors have received boosts in terms of demand; it has helped to guide countries as they make decision about different trade-offs in the design of the programme and improved the standard of the health of school children, evident in particular through a reduction in diarrheal cases, as well as cleanliness in the school environment.
There are equal numbers of programmes that adopt centralised and decentralised approaches, either to take action at the highest national level or at the most local school level; it is however the context that will determine which approach is more appropriate. Most programmes have shown themselves however effective in terms of their outcomes. The programmes are commonly targeted at public schools with a good percentage of them offering one meal a day, except in countries like Chile and Ecuador that give two rations a day.
The focus of the book is on building understanding at country level and documenting government school feeding programmes in low-and-middle income countries; and ensuring that positive contributions are made to food markets and that the enabling systems around the countries generate structured and predictable demand for food products, thus benefiting farmers and promoting sustainable local economic development. Comparatively, the programmes have shown that there are many routes to achieving a successful school feeding programme. It also shows that the programmes themselves are surprisingly fluid and dynamic, often changing drastically as they evolve. This implies a continuing need for countries to monitor their programmes in real time and to provide feedback that can lead to evidence-based changes in policy.
A well-articulated policy and legal framework helps to create a platform for cross-sectorial interaction and helps ensure better policy alignment. Whatever the mechanism, some form of regulatory framework closely informed by national context is a perquisite for effective, sustainable and government-owned school feeding programmes. Countries like Brazil, Mexico and South Africa regulate the programme through the national Constitution but Osun state (Nigeria) is moving from reliance on technical guidelines towards developing a State level law on school feeding.
A critical study of the Osun State School Feeding (O’MEAL) shows it as succeeding mainly due to a strong political will, as well as effective financial disbursements and food procurement practices. Osun is a state located in the South-Western part of Nigeria, with a population of 3.5 million people out of 168 million Nigerian citizens. Sometimes in 2004, the Federal Government of Nigeria initiated the Home Grown School Feeding and Health Programme (HGSFHP) through the Universal Basic Education Act of 2004 (UBEC, 2005). The legislation involved stipulated that at a minimum all State primary schools must provide one meal (breakfast, lunch or a take-home ration) a day to each pupil. To begin the national programme, the Federal Ministry of Education in 2005 decided on a phased pilot of the programme which rolled out in 2006, beginning with 13 States from the six geo-political zones. The l3 pilot States included: Bauchi, Cross River, Enugu, the Federal Capital Territory, Imo, Kano, Kebbi, Kogi, Nasarawa, Ogun, Osun, Rivers, and Yobe. Out of the 13 pilot States, the Osun State HGSFHP (OSHGSFHP) was the only programme that remains, representing a model of good practice amongst other school feeding initiatives in Nigeria.
The OSHGSFHP was however redesigned in 2012 and is now termed the Osun Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme (O-MEALS Programme). The programme currently provides one mid-morning school meal a day for over 252,000 primary school children in elementary grades one to four in all 1,382 public primary schools in Osun State. One cook (commonly known in the O-MEALS Programme as a food vendor) prepares the school meal for at least 50 school children.
The O-MEALS Programme receives 40 percent of its funding from the State and 60 percent from the constituting LGAs. The total annual budget stands at N2.6 billion ($16.40 million), excluding staff salaries and other support costs covered by other ministries; while per child, the budget is N10, 080 ($63.40) per year. Unlike other school feeding programmes piloted in Nigeria, the O-MEALS Programme does not advocate for in-kind support from parents or from communities as it is in countries like Mali and Namibia. In addition, on a monthly basis an amount of N750,000 ($4,717) and N9 million ($56,604) on an annual basis are budgeted for monitoring and evaluation activities.
The O-MEALS Programme design is decentralised and community based. The hiring of cooks is initiated at the community level. Women leaders and traditional leaders are all able to participate in the hiring of cooks, which ensures the credibility of the cooks taken from communities. Although there is no document of quality standards for the O-MEALS Programme, but the program mandates a menu based on the National Guidelines for School Meal Planning adjusted to accommodate seasonality and local availability.
The Brazil School Feeding Programme, currently known as ‘Programa Nacional de Alimentacao Escolar (PNAE)’ – the National School Feeding Programme, was first introduced in the early 1940s. Until 1993, school feeding implementation in Brazil was centralised at federal level. It is an example of a universal programme, completely regulated and sponsored by the national government.
As at 2014, the programme had reached 42,333,722 children in 163,000 public schools – children with special education needs; kindergarten; pre-primary; primary, secondary, youth and adult education; indigenous; and slave-descendant communities are benefiting from the programme, making it the second largest in the world behind India.
When Cape Verdean school feeding started in 1979, following Independence with WFP assistance, it was an intervention to address food insecurity but in 2010, the government of Cape Verde took full responsibility of the programme and has since changed its role of the programme, making it now universal and covering children in primary schools from grades 1 to 6, as well as children in public pre-primary schools, and providing a total of 85,079 pre-primary and primary school child with one meal per day.
The Chile School feeding programme named Programa de Alimentacion Escolar (PAE) began as far back as 1929 and it covers 9,670 primary and secondary schools, reaching 1,850,000 children with at least two rations (breakfast and lunch).
The Cote d’Ivoire programme was adopted by the government as a means of achieving universal education. Earlier ones were supported by parents and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). From 1989 to 1998, the WFP supported various projects through the government’s initiative, and the Integrated Programme for the Sustainability of School Canteens ‘Programme Integre de Perennisation des Cantines Scolaires’ was one of such.
In this context, the Ecuador government has put special emphasis on the development of an inclusive social policy and in the consolidation of food assistance programmes such as schools feeding. Initially, the WFP and UNDP contributed resources and technical support for the programme until 2009 when the government assumed full management of the programme.
Ecuador provides a nutritious breakfast and also lunch to 1,788,414 school children from pre-primary to grade 10 of basic general education, covering 89 percent of students registered in the public educational system. But in 2009, the lunch aspect of the programme was eliminated with the intention to extend the breakfast coverage, so as to achieve universalisation by 2013.
The history of school feeding programmes in Ghana dates back to the 1950s, being coordinated by Catholic Relief Services and the UN World Food Programme (WFP), but which was only limited to North of the country due to the high incidence of poverty and food insecurity in the zone. In response to universal programmes, the Ghanian government launched a nationally owned school feeding scheme known as ‘Ghana School Feeding Programme’. In 2012, the programme covered 1,642,271 school children in 4,952 primary schools within the 216 districts.
India’s school feeding programme, ‘Mid-Day Meal Scheme’ was launched in 1995 and aimed at enhancing enrolment and retention in schools and boosting the universalisation of primary education, while simultaneously impacting on nutrition of students in primary classes. With 113.6 million school children on the scheme, it was a unique example of a large-scale programme regulated and sponsored by a central government, with the important involvement of States and local authorities in the management, funding and implementation.
In 2003, Kenya lunched Free Primary Education which saw to an additional enrolment of one million children in primary schools. The programme recorded large successes as statistics show a primary enrolment rate rising as high as 96 percent in 2011. It is a partnership between the Government of Kenya and the United Nations World Food Programme (WPF).
The Malian programme, known as ‘Programme National d Alimentation Scolaire’ seeks to promote equal access to education for girls and boys alike. It was first institutionalised in 1962 and covers one meal (lunch) per day for 109,000 school children in 809 primary schools, in addition to the number of beneficiary school children from the WFP Catholic Relief Services, and other NGO-supported programmes (estimated at over 200,000 beneficiaries in more than 900 targeted primary schools).
The 80-year old Mexican school breakfast programme ‘Desayunos Escolares’ stands out for its longevity and ability to survive social and administrative changes. The programme has been re-thought to tackle new health challenges. Now, it represents a nationwide platform for health and development interventions and promotes healthy eating.
The Namibia School Feeding Programme (NSFP) began as a pilot programme in 1991. Following the success of the pilot, a four-year national school feeding programme was launched by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in co-operation with the Government of Namibia in 1992. Vulnerable needy children were geographically targeted in schools located in drought prone low crop producing regions. This included pre-primary, primary and poor private hostel institutions.
The South African school feeding programme has been in existence since 1994, when the first democratic government was elected, and is fully government funded. Close to 12 million children in 24,255 public schools have so far enjoyed the programme, with a daily mid-morning cooked meal, five days a week.
The overall message is that there is no one size fits all for school feeding programs. Context is key, with different school feeding approaches being suited to different country situations. While there is no one best model, there are many good practices across programmes whose efficiencies and innovations can be usefully shared across countries. It also shows that the programmes have evolved over time, often quite rapidly; demonstrating that programming for school feeding is typically a dynamic process which benefits from ongoing learning and adaptation.
It again suggests that a wide range of institutional arrangements can be effective and efficient in determining the design, management and implementation of school feeding programmes. The key determinants of success are that the programme’s organisation should correspond with existing mandates and capacities at different levels of the government and that the responsibilities of departments and sectors are clearly defined.
School feeding costs vary considerably among low and middle income countries and the costs in the lessons as listed below cover this spectrum. An estimated of 49 percent school children in middle-income countries receive free school meals, in comparison to 18 percent in low-income countries.
Ajibola Basiru writes from Oshogbo, Osun State.
This is a review essay based on Global School Feeding Sourcebook – Lessons from 14 Countries by Lesley Drake and Alice Woolnough (Editors); Imperial College Press, London, 2016.
