Every year, nations around the world celebrate
World Food Day on October 16th. On this day, organizations rally around to make
a statement on the eradication of hunger within their locales.
Many school-age children across the globe
depend on school feeding programs for morning and mid-day meals. School feeding
programs incentivize parents to keep children in school and provide students
the essential nutrients to stay healthy and able to learn.
School feeding programs have a long history as
a social protection tool. The provision of meals in schools was one of the
first public welfare programs worldwide and among the first interventions to be
widely delivered through the education sector.
Evidence shows that these programs support the
development potential of children and offset lost income for struggling
families. With children fed at school, families are better positioned to
navigate financial hurdles, and in doing so, generate large-scale economic
growth nationally.
When feeding programs are advertised with local
schools as targets, the interest it generates among community members is
palpable.
The interest peaks if items used in preparing
the meals are bought from local vendors or markets.
School feeding programs support the development
of local economies and agriculture development goals by generating a stable,
structured, and predictable demand for produce.
It’s increasingly incorporated into the
objectives of the school feeding programs, along with broader strategies, to
achieve food security and rural development.
Brazil is an example of how the government used
school feeding programs to spark social intervention. Running for over 50
years, the national program now reaches 45 million students annually.
An integrated example from the State of Mato
Grosso involves women groups from forest settlements adding value to Brazil
nuts that grow wild in their forests. The normal practice is for local
indigenous and settler communities to collect these forest nuts and sell them
to traders for a pittance.
School feeding programming will be critical to
achieving the Sustainable Development Goal for inclusive and equitable learning
opportunities.
As a social inclusion program for school-age
children, school feeding programs, in particular, are intrinsically pro-poor
because their greatest benefits accrue to children who are poor and hungry and
are a proven tool to keep the poorest children in school.
This is why governments that implement scalable
and sustainable school feeding programs benefit the children, local farmers,
and the national economy overall.
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