The Global Child Nutrition Forum is a peer-to-peer exchange designed to stimulate critical discussions about school meal programs around the world, identify collective priorities, and provide advice and support for one another going forward. The four-day event includes plenary sessions, technical workshops, school visits, and cultural activities.

The 2022 Forum takes place from 24th to 27th October in Cotonou, Benin. We will be providing updates at this page.

Day 4

During the the fourth and final day of the 2022 Global Child Nutrition Forum, participants had the opportunity to visit different schools in which school food programmes were present, seeing first hand the benefits of such programmes on children and communities.

Day 3

Plenary: Sustainability and resilience in school meal programmes

Katherine Overcamp, Country Representative of Catholic Relief Services in Benin, opened by reminding how, even during the pandemic, many school meal programmes around the world continued to deliver meals to kids, providing a safety net in such a difficult time.

The session then began with a presentation of the McGovern-Dole Programme by Tanner Roark, Technical Advisor at Global Communities. The presentation focused on their experience in Tanzania, where in twelve years they supported the serving of more than 200 million school meals. The local communities contribute with food and commodities such as rice, beans and vegetables; food procurement is mainly carried out at the local and regional level. In many cases, the country programme features school gardens that provide engaging, hands-on spaces where students can learn to grow nutritious food. 

María del Rosario Balcarcel Minchez, Vice Minister of Education of Guatemala, then presented the school meal programme in the country. The programme’s key policy milestones were:

• 2016: Food and Nutrition Security Strategy
• 2018: Creation of the School Feeding Law
• 2021: Reform of the School Feeding Law

One of the objectives of the programme is to contribute to communities’ behaviour change for better diets: to do so, training activities for parents are carried out to support them in developing good eating habits, while food and nutrition security is integrated in school curricula.

A particular focus was dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic period, during which the programme model was adapted to continue to deliver food despite the school closures, benefitting 2.6 million children. Products from local agriculture were incorporated, therefore strengthening the local economy.

The session continued with a presentation of the experience of the Union Provinciale des société cooperatives in the Sanmatenga province of Burkina Faso, delivered by Noufou Ouedraogo. The Union puts together 186 local cooperatives, offering them technical support, capacity building and marketing opportunities. The main clients of the Union’s members are local authorities, which also use the produce for their school canteens. 

Despite its challenges that range from high levels of food insecurity that pushes people away from the region to the effects of climate change that heavily impact the food production, the Union has ambitious plans for the future. In fact, while the Union is currently in partnership with three local authorities of the region, it aims to establish new ones to both provide new opportunities for its members as well as local food products for the school canteens in the area.

Vongsine Sayavong, Head of the International Convention and Cooperation Division of the Ministry of Education and Sport of Laos, then presented the school meal programmes in the country. Laos started delivering school meals in 2002 in collaboration with WFP; in 2012, it launched its National School Meal Programme, also in collaboration with Catholic Relief Services. Up to 2016, the programme focussed on expanding its reach, while in 2018 the handover phase began and continued until 2021. Currently the coverage under the government funding reaches more than 160.000 primary school students in 1787 schools, which represent approximately 35 per cent of the primary schools in Laos.

Session: McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Programme

The session provided an overview of the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Programme. The two strategic objectives of the United States-funded programme are to reduce hunger and improve literacy and primary education, especially for girls. The McGovern-Dole programme currently has 55 active projects in 34 countries, overall benefitting two million school-age children.

After the introduction, the session offered hands-on recommendations to propose a strong project for funding, such as addressing both strategic objectives, considering the local context (also through a gender analysis), and evaluating the sustainability and lasting impact.

The coordinators also stressed the importance of the local procurement component that must account for ten per cent of the total project budget, and must complement the school meal commodities donated. These local agricultural commodities must be produced in or procured from the target country or a LMIC in the region, and must also meet the nutritional, quality and labelling standard of the target country.

PLENARY: Lighting rounds

The afternoon featured lighting rounds, the first of which was the presentation of this School food global hub. After an overview, the sections in which users can play an active role were presented: the survey to construct the peer-to-peer exchange section, the Youth Corner and the building of the country profiles in the Around the world section.

The following speaker presented “FRANI”, an artificial intelligence-assisted tool to measure dietary intake. A validation study in Ghana has shown that FRANI performs well when compared to the gold standard method in dietary assessment for adolescents. The project will continue with another validation study in youth aged 18-24, and a pilot to monitor the quality of school meals by incorporating an indicator into FRANI.

The session continued with an overview of the home-grown school feeding programme in Nigeria, which was established to increase school enrolment, retention and attendance while improving nutrition and health outcomes. The programme, entirely funded by the Federal Government, provides one free nutritious hot meal a day, made by locally-sourced agricultural produce, to 36 per cent of pupils in year one to three, reaching more than 27.8 million children. 90 per cent of the foods procured for the programme come from the local community: farms provide animal source foods, grains, etc. while the private sector provides snacks and processing part of products such as rice.

PLENARY: SCHOOL MEALS AROUND THE WORLD

In this second country-sharing session, representatives of Bhutan, Brazil, Burundi, Finland, Guatemala and Malawi highlighted what element of their national school meal programme they are particularly proud of.

You can access the GCNF country profiles of the countries involved in the discussion below.

Day 2

plenary: the triple burden of malnutrition

This session looked at nutrition of school-aged children through the view of different institutions and organizations.

The session opened with a reminder that current food systems and diets are harming both our health and our planet: diet-related disease and mortality rates are high and increasing in most regions, while global food demand creates about 35 per cent of all greenhouses emissions (Global Nutrition Report 2021).

Stineke Oenema, Executive Secretary of UN Nutrition, provided an overview of the inter-agency coordination and collaboration mechanism for nutrition at the global and country levels:

• Vision: A world without malnutrition
• Mission: Coordinate and leverage the response of UN agencies to address malnutrition in all forms, along with its root causes

UN Nutrition therefore works to increase the harmonization and collaboration of United Nations' agencies on nutrition and provide coordinated and aligned support to governments for greater impact for children, women and people everywhere, so the UN can speak as one voice.

Jennie Davies, postdoctoral scholar (University of California Davis, Institute for Global Nutrition) focused on the triple burden on malnutrition:

• Underweight, wasting, stunting
• Micronutrient deficiencies, anemias
• Overweight, obesity and non-communicable diseases

Findings from a recent study indicate that around the world, micronutrient deficiencies affect:

• 1 in 2 kids (0-5)
• 2 in 3 women

On the other hand, overweight and obesity is an issue that characterizes middle-income countries: one of the key factors is the dietary patterns, with low nutrition value foods becoming cheaper and more accessible.

Key drivers of the triple burden of malnutrition include:

• Social and demographic: socioeconomic disadvantage and poverty, food insecurity
• Biological: inheritability, epigenetic, early-life experience
• Environmental: food supply systems, food portion sizes and cost, cultural and social aspects, urban and built environment, trade and trade policy
• Behavioural: lifestyle and habits, psychological factors

workshop: New tools and methods for measuring the quality of school meals for improved diets and nutrition

workshop: nutrition sensitive value chains for home-grown school feeding programmes

workshop: integrating gender into school meal programmes

The workshop coordinators opened by explaining that, in 2021, 27.6 of men globally were moderately or severely food insecure, compared to 31.9 per cent women. In the case of girl’s education, barriers vary by context, but can include:

• Early pregnancy, child marriage, school-based violence;
• Lack of female school teachers and staff/administrators;
• Lack of proper hygiene facilities and/or menstrual hygiene management systems.

In relation to schools, the workshop coordinators highlighted that:

• Nutritious school meals can reduce anemia in adolescent girls by 20 per cent;
• Each additional year of schooling can boost a girl’s eventual earnings by 10-20 per cent;
• Making sure all girls are finishing secondary education by 2030 could boost the GDP of LMICs by 10 per cent.

GCNF’s 2021 Global Survey of School Meal Programs found that gender inequality is still high in school meal programmes: only 50 per cent of programmes report an explicit focus on gender. Moreover, in countries that rely on voluntary work the involvement of women in school meal programmes is higher, while as the sector is or becomes more professionalized, the involvement of men increases.

Presenters also offered insights from particular countries, based on the same survey. For example, in Niger:

• Scholarships are granted to girls;
• Take-home rations are typically targeted towards girl students with at least 80 per cent attendance rate;
• Programmes include a focus on creating jobs for women;
• Complementary programme designs, such as anemia testing, MHM/RH activities, are present.

While in Benin:

• In some areas, norms and cultural beliefs still limit the full involvement of girls;
• A specific gender strategy was developed (in alignment with CRS’ Global Gender strategy and minimum standards);
• Gender specialists support gender integration in all projects, from the design to the monitoring phase;
• Gender focal points support community with awareness-raising, training and advocacy.

The workshop then involved group work on an analysis of the SABER school health and school feeding rubric from a gender perspective, focusing on the themes of:

• Community involvement,
• Design and implementation,
• Policy frameworks,
• Financial capacity,
• Coordination

Most groups found that SABER does not openly address the gender perspective, so participants brainstormed and came up with possible solutions to do so.

plenary: school meals around the world

In this country-sharing session, representatives of Cambodia, Cameroon, Congo, Ethiopia, Fiji, Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Nepal answered questions regarding school meal programmes in their respective countries.

You can access the GCNF country profiles of the countries involved in the discussion below.

workshop: the Third Form of Malnutrition

During this workshop, participants learned more about growing trends of overweight and obesity worldwide and the triple burden of malnutrition. They discussed the Shared Drivers of Malnutrition, which are biological, environmental, and socioeconomic risk factors that are associated with both undernutrition and overweight and obesity, and brainstormed on the WHO framework for interventions that address multiple forms of malnutrition simultaneously (Double Duty Actions).

Several themes came up during the roundtable discussion, such as the importance of incorporating more fruits and vegetables into school meals, the importance of offering locally grown and indigenous foods, the role of physical activity in the school curriculum, and marketing strategies that promote nutritious foods.

workshop: The importance of private sector collaboration for more nutritious school meals

The workshop coordinators opened by explaining the benefits of fortified food. Betty Kibaara, Director of the Food Initiative at Rockefeller Foundation, explained that the dominance of refined grain foods in diets contributes to the double burden of malnutrition. Low consumption of whole grains is the second highest dietary risk factor contributing to the most annual deaths after high intake of sodium.

A combination of technology, consumer preferences and market dynamics are leading to a resurgence in whole grain supply and demand, making the case for a transition from refined to whole grain foods even stronger. 

The speaker stated that fortification is an additional means to increase the nutritional value of grain foods, and therefore can be “a nutrition-positive and budget-neutral substitute to refined and unfortified products”. In the context of school meals, Betty Kibaara presented the results of a pilot study in Rwanda in which there was a shift from refined flour to fortified whole grain flour.

Day 1

First day of the 2022 Global Child Nutrition Forum! Over 200 participants from 44 countries and 32 organizations gather in Cotonou, Benin, for the 23^rd edition of the Forum under the theme of “Convergence of forces for resilience and sustainability of school meal programmes worldwide”. Right from the opening ceremony, speakers stressed how school meal programmes can constitute key tools to achieving numerous SDGs, including eliminating hunger and poverty.

Abdoulaye Bio Tchané, Minister of Benin for Development and Coordination of Government Action, underlined the impact that school meal programmes can have in countries, both on the health and wellbeing of the children but also on economic sectors such as agriculture, in the case of the home-grown school meal programmes. Benin realized long ago that offering a hot meal to children is an investment in human capital, and in light of this the Minister stated that at the end of the 2021 academic year, 75% of children in Benin were receiving a school meal in primary school, and the government set the goal to increase this to 100 per cent for the current academic year.

Scott Campbell, Central Africa Regional Director of Catholic Relief Services, confirmed the successful model that Benin represents based on the experience of the organization in the country. Benin’s programme involves parents, schools and communities as they play a key role in preparing the school meals. Moreover, many of the schools in Benin that CRS is supporting have gardens that serve multiple purposes, including offering learning occasions for kids who therefore enhance their sense of ownership, as well as produce some fresh food for the school meals.

Carmen Burbano, Director of the School Feeding Division of the World Food Programme, stressed the urge to sustain and expand national school meal programmes in light of the pandemic recovery and of the current global crisis. The positive sign is the growing political roadmap and international commitment towards further supporting school meal programmes around the world: the launching of the School Meals Coalition in October 2021 marked a key point that will continue in the upcoming months with other international gatherings on occasions such as COP 28.

Arlene Mitchell, Executive Director of the Global Child Nutrition Foundation, underlined how each year partners at the GCNF had made progress and worked together to make school meal programmes work better. Moreover, she stressed that even in the pandemic years countries found the way of making their school meal programmes working. This year’s Forum should provide the opportunity for partners to work together to protect, improve and expand school meal programmes around the world.

The afternoon, after welcoming the delegations from countries and organizations, was dedicated to the first round of workshops. These are some highlights of the sessions.

The School Meals Coalition: Where we are today and how to engage