The United Nations’ 4th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for 2030 is quality education for all. Although major progress has been made, an estimated 260 million children were out of school in 2018 [1]. Poverty, gender disparity, and school distance are some of the major barriers that these children face. However, one particular solution that has been shown to improve school attendance is the implementation of a school-feeding program. According to the Global School Feeding Sourcebook: Lessons from 14 Countries, feeding programs have been gaining popularity because of the wide array of benefits they deliver towards education, public health, and the local economy.

For example, in the landlocked country of Botswana, the United Nations World Food Program (UNWFP) supported the implementation of the National School Feeding Program back in 1966 [2]. A review of evidence over the past 45 years strongly supports the notion that school attendance rate and enrollment rate are strongly associated with the presence of a feeding program. Furthermore, the fact that these feeding programs employ people from the community serves as an outlet for combating poverty. When households feel more secure economically, they are less likely to depend on their children for extra income. In doing so, this increases the children’s chances of attending school on a regular basis.

In the case of Ghana, the country started its national school feeding program back in 2005. Although the primary goal was to increase school enrollment, the program was also aimed at increasing food production and food security in underserved communities [2]. The feeding program was first introduced to 10 schools in 2005. In 2009, school feeding programs were present in over 1,600 schools and served more than 650,000 children. By 2012, over 1.6 million children across 4,900 schools were covered by the program. With students being fed properly in school, evidence showed that their health has also improved. However, one area that posed a challenge was ensuring that local farmers will have a reliable market to exchange commodities in, something that the feeding program did not fully deliver.

In Kenya, the central government cooperated with UNWFP back in 1980 to start school feeding initiatives. The program initially serviced over 200,000 children, growing to 1.5 million by 2010 [2]. With massive support coming from the international community as well as the local government, Kenya was able to implement two models of the feeding program which target different goals. One of them was geared towards agricultural development which was put in place to benefit smallholder farmers. In terms of student enrollment, schools with feeding programs had higher enrollment rates than those without. This further supports the importance of nutrition in achieving quality education for all.

Evidence from the three countries examined above highlights the idea that in order to achieve the SDG’s education goal, creative solutions that target more than one issue are necessary. The school feeding programs work well not only because they increase enrollment rates, but also because they improve the overall health of the students and have the potential to create economic opportunities for the local communities.

Written by Mary Buendia

References:

1. Drake, L., Woolnough, A., Burbano, C., & Bundy, D. (Eds.). (2016). Global School Feeding

Sourcebook: Lessons From 14 Countries. Imperial College Press. 

2. United Nations. (2020). Sustainable Development Goals.  https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/education/