School Meals Coalition

In early 2020, school feeding programmes delivered more meals than ever before, to 388 million children, or one out of every two primary school children worldwide. This historic progress was the culmination of a decade of action by governments and their partners. However, there was still work to be done with 73 million of the most vulnerable girls and boys without access to school meals.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought this progress to a sudden halt. In April 2020, during the height of the pandemic, almost all countries closed their schools, leaving 370 million school children without access to the one meal a day they could rely on.

To ensure that every child has the opportunity to grow, learn and thrive, a group of member states and partners formed an international School Meals Coalition.

The Coalition will support governments and their partners to improve the quality of school meals and strengthen school meal systems globally, in a manner which is tailored to local contexts and which promotes the sharing of international best practices.