The impact of the global hunger and food insecurity emergency was dramatically amplified by the financial crisis. The poor often do not have enough food at home, and most schools in developing countries do not have canteens or cafeterias. On empty stomachs, children have problems concentrating on their lessons.A daily school meal boosts learning by allowing children to focus on their studies and not on their stomachs.
SCHOOL FEEDING
Provision of food to school children
IN-SCHOOL MEALS
Children are fed breakfast, lunch or both in school
TAKE-HOME RATIONS
Transfer of food resources to entire families conditional upon school enrolment and regular attendance of children
MEALS, HIGH-ENERGY BISCUITS AND SNACKS
SCHOOL FEEDING OUTCOMES
Nutrition
Improved micronutrient and macronutrient intake lead to enhanced nutrition and child health, increased learning and decreased morbidity for students
Education
School feeding can help to get children into school and help to keep them there, through enhancing enrolment and reducing absenteeism.
Gender
Proven positive contribution of school feeding to gender equality. Access to school for OVCs, IDP, HIV affected
Value Transfer
School feeding transfer resources to households, averting negative coping strategies and allowing investments in productive assets
Platform for wider Socio-economic Benefits
Linkages to health and nutrition/ essential package interventions. Spin offs to community development, local production, in particular when food is being sourced from poor, smallholder farmers.
“Home-Grown School Feeding (HGSF) is a school feeding programme that provides food produced and purchased within a country”.
Linking school feeding to local agricultural production
Increasing small-scale farmers’ (SSF) access to the school feeding market
Encouraging improved production practices among small-scale farmers
Increasing direct purchase from smallholders
SCHOOL FEEDING AS A SAFETY NET
School Feeding is an effective safety net:
It helps to protect vulnerable children during times of crises
It safeguards nutrition, education and gender equality and provides a range of socio-economic benefits
It confers a significant level of value transfer to those households with children enrolled in school or those with school-age children
School Feeding can be an effective safety net in different contexts:
Emergency and protracted crisis: School feeding encourages children to enter and remain in school by providing a food value transfer to the household on the condition the children attend class.
Post conflict/disaster, transition: SFPs can restore the educational system, it can encourage the return of IDPs and refugees by signalling that basic services are operating and it is thus safe to return home.
Chronic hunger: In more stable situations, SFPs should become an increasingly integral safety net of government policies and strategies to alleviate hunger and poverty.
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