“One child, one meal” could be the motto of the School Feeding Coalition. This World Food Program (WFP) initiative was launched in November 2021 with the ambition of providing every vulnerable student with a free hot lunch by 2030, in support of national plans already in place. The stakes are high since the canteen is often the only daily nutritional intake for millions of children around the world.
For Africa, traversed by the most serious hunger crisis for twenty years coupled with a deep education crisis, it is one of the first social safety nets allowing countries to bring back and maintain in class the millions of children out of school by the Covid-19 pandemic and its cohort of school closures. In total, in 2022, more than 62 million African students benefited from school meals, including about 10 million supported by WFP, according to the report on “State of School Feeding in the World” published by the United Nations agency at the end of March.
To deal with the brutal impoverishment of families, the States have mobilized strongly despite increasingly constrained finances by the economic consequences of Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine. The share of public funding for school feeding has thus increased from 30% to 45% between 2020 and 2022, even as contributions from international donors have fallen from 69% to 55%. Yet the pre-pandemic level of care has yet to be caught up, with a 4% drop in the number of children receiving school feeding, and investments are proving insufficient given the huge needs: among the most vulnerable children, more than eight out of ten did not have access to a school meal.
For its part, the African Union decided in 2016 to dedicate March 1 as “African School Feeding Day” and to make it a meeting of ministers of education to convince more and more governments to adopt the goal of universal food coverage and highlight its social and economic benefits. Emerging from the pandemic, some countries have clearly made it a budgetary priority, reports the WFP again. Benin, for example, has announced a commitment of nearly 249 million euros over five years to expand its national program, while Rwanda, which has multiplied by almost six the number of beneficiary pupils in two years, is approaching the goal with 3.8 million children covered out of a population of 4.7 million (aged 5-19).
“Virtuous Circle”
“All over the continent, canteens have been a real place of resilience after the Covid crisis. But in 2022, the war in Ukraine has brutally increased the prices of foodstuffs and the cost of their delivery, testifies the Beninese Karen Ologoudou, regional adviser for the WFP in West Africa. This new situation has forced us to review our offer, in particular by importing less, by using cooperatives and by developing short circuits with local producers. This triggered a real virtuous circle. »
For example, in The Gambia, the Coalition for School Feeding teams worked with several groups made up of 880 women workers who process fish in an artisanal way. In the coastal villages of Brufut, Gunjur and Tanji, these women have been trained to improve the quantity and quality of their production. Construction of drying shelters with solar panels, better smoking, improved hygiene, access to water… Everything has been redesigned to allow them to sell their fish directly to the municipalities. In the canteens, it is other women who cook and fill the plates.
“The short circuit also allowed us to compose more diversified menus and to offer children local products, fresh and adapted to their culture”, says Karen Ologoudou. A circular economy that directly benefits families, particularly in rural areas, by providing them with a year-long income, while producers, who are also parents, have once again been able to put their children on school benches.
Urgency prevails in the face of the shock wave of the war in Ukraine, which has not finished producing its effects. The economies of the continent have experienced 12% to 39% food inflation depending on the area. In West Africa alone, another 10 million Africans could face hunger this year, according to the UN. “The needs remain very great, but a huge dynamic is underway, testifies Karen Ologoudou. Because beyond feeding children day by day, it is a question of investing in the human capital of an entire generation. »
