School Meals Boost Education and Food Security for Children

WASHINGTON, November 24, 2009—As governments worldwide continue to grapple with fallout from the global economic crisis, a new report from the World Bank and the World Food Programme (WFP) shows that school feeding and other food-based safety net programs are vital to keeping children in school, improving their learning and health, and promoting food security.

Although the report says that most countries offer school meals to their students, poor countries face a double burden of trying to expand under-funded feeding programs while fending off the worst effects of the financial, food, and fuel crises, with too little support from the international aid community.

According to the new report¯Rethinking School Feeding: Social Safety Nets, Child Development, and the Education Sector¯school feeding programs in poor countries boost school attendance, help children to learn more effectively, and spur better performance in class, especially when these programs are twinned with other measures such as de-worming (against soil-transmitted intestinal worms) and micronutrient-fortified snacks and biscuits, or vitamin supplements. In many countries, school feeding programs are one of the key incentives to get children¯especially girls and the poorest and most vulnerable children¯into school, along with abolition of school fees and conditional cash transfer programs. The report says that providing school meals to children in qualifying families can be the equivalent of adding an extra 10 percent to average household incomes.

“What is clear from this report is that we are beyond the debate about whether school feeding makes sense as a way to reach the most vulnerable,” says World Bank Group President, Robert B. Zoellick, in a joint foreword to the new report, along with WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran. “In the face of global crises, we must now focus on how school feeding programs can be designed and implemented in a cost-effective and sustainable way to benefit and protect those most in need of help today and in the future.”

In a recent analysis of WFP survey data from 32 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that grouped 4,000 primary schools, girls’ enrollments went up by 28 percent, twice the rate in schools not receiving assistance. When programs combined on-site school meals and take-home rations for a student’s family, girls’ enrollment in the highest primary grade surged by 46 percent, twice the yearly rate for girls in schools offering only on-site meals. The study finds that older girls are less likely to drop out, and that girls are more likely to stay in class throughout primary school when they bring food home to their families on top of their school meals.

The report finds that coverage of school feeding programs is most complete in high- and middle-income countries. For example, more than 50 percent of schoolchildren in Washington, D.C., receive free school meals—and Japan has one of the most comprehensive school feeding programs in the world. School meals can be rapidly deployed as a social safety net but, unfortunately, poor countries with the greatest needs too often run small, underfunded programs that cannot meet demand.