N4G 2025 side event: Maximizing the nutrition impact of school meal programmes

The Global School Meals Coalition, the Coalition of Action on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems for Children and All, FAO, WFP, UNICEF and UN-Nutrition cordially invite you to attend the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit official side event entitled: Maximizing the Nutrition Impact of School Meal Programmes to be held on 28 March 2025.

All forms of childhood malnutrition remain a major global challenge. Promoting healthy diets and good nutrition during school age and adolescence, is essential if the investments in early childhood are to be sustained and for children to reach their full potential. School health and nutrition policies and programmes, with school meals as a central component, play a critical role in supporting this goal. In 2022, governments and donors invested almost 50 billion USD in school meals around the world1. Many of these programmes have specific objectives to improve schoolchildren and adolescents’ diets and nutrition status. 

However, evidence suggests that these objectives are not always realized in practice. Deficiencies in the composition of school meals and how these programmes are linked to complementary interventions can explain some of the variability found in their effects on students’ diet quality and nutrition outcomes. Additionally, unhealthy school food environments and adverse changes to children’s home diets can also contribute to the lack of expected impact. 

Given the significant investment that governments are making in their school meal programmes, it is as urgent as ever to ensure that the impact on children’s and adolescent’s diet quality and nutrition is optimized. An evidence-based approach to catalyse impact is to implement data-driven and context-specific nutrition guidelines and standards (NGS) for school meals that consider the dietary and nutrition needs of students as well as aspects of socialization, food learning, equity and social justice. Additionally, they should account for limitations, trade-offs and sustainability of the school food system. Implementing such nutrition standards is also an increasingly recognized approach to support children’s right to food in schools. 

At present several countries with national school meal programmes do not have official NGS, while others require urgent updates to address shifting priorities and food system challenges. Countries also face difficulties in determining the best methods to establish these standards and to align them with their national dietary guidelines, the food and nutrition curriculum, and broader regulations governing the school food environment. These challenges are further compounded in contexts where data on children and adolescents is of poor quality or severely limited. 

This event will showcase how robust nutrition standards for school meals can enhance children’s diet quality and support broader sustainability goals. It will also introduce a new global methodology and guidance package to help countries design, implement, and monitor school meal nutrition standards and complementary interventions.

In addition, you’ll hear from countries that have recently developed their standards using this approach, as well as from youth advocates who will share their perspectives on school meals, emphasizing the need for stronger regulation, action-oriented food education, and a holistic approach to school food.

Event details:

📅 Date: 28 March 2025

🕥 Time: 10:30 – 12:00 CET

📍 Location: Pullman Tour Eiffel Hotel, Paris

🌍 Languages: Interpretation available in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese

Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc0XYsgE1ukzlHUC8IjbuaFyBgQ-DBB78O5gdlk7i8KlxqbJw/viewform?usp=preview

💻 Virtual participation: A Zoom link will be provided for those unable to attend in person

Tentative agenda: 
Overall moderator: Ms Anna Horner- Senior Coordinator, UN‑Nutrition Secretariat

Welcome
•Ms Anna Horner- Senior Coordinator, UN‑Nutrition Secretariat
Opening remarks and setting the scene: the need to prioritize schoolchildren and adolescents’ right to food
•H.E. Dr. Ophelia Nick - Parliamentary State Secretary, German Federal Ministry of Food andAgriculture

Video: What do children expect from their school meals and the broader school food environment?
•School food youth advocates and activists

Introduction of the school meal nutrition guidelines and standards methodology and complementary guidance manuals on the school food environment, food education, public procurement and enabling policy and legal frameworks
•Mr. Raschad AlKhafaji, Director of the Liaison Office with the European Union and Belgium,FAO

Panel: Country experiences in developing Nutrition Guidelines and Standards
•Moderator: Ms. Carmen Burbano - Director of School Meals Coalition Secretariat & Director of School Meals and Social Protection Service, WFP (TBC)•H.E. Sok Silo, Secretary General of the Council of Agriculture and Rural Developmentand National Food Systems Convenor •Representative from the Ghana School Feeding Programme

A dialogue with countries and partners: Highlighting experiences and comments submitted by attendees during registration and live at the event
•Moderator: Mr. Mauro Brero- Senior Adviser Food Systems for Children, UNICEF

Call for investments to support governments in adoption of school meal NGS and healthy school food environments
•Ms. Fernanda Pacobahyba - President of the Brazilian National Fund for the Development of Education (FNDE)

Closing remarks: Representative from Sweden

Register