UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : Bi-Weekly Press Briefing: School Meals Report

School meals a critical safety net amid global food crisis - WFP

School meals are a critical safety net for vulnerable children and households amid the global food crisis, at a time when over 150 million children and young people are going hungry, the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a report on Tuesday.

“Something like half of those affected by the hunger crisis are children”, Carmen Burbano, WFP’s head of school-based programmes, told media in Geneva. “This is why programmes that governments are implementing all across the world to feed children in school are important for their food security, for their hunger levels and for many other issues.”

With many schools forced to shut their doors during the COVID-19 pandemic, free lunch programmes were upended worldwide, with dramatic results.

“Children have been disproportionately affected in the last couple of years because of simultaneous crises. Many of you may be aware that because of COVID school closures in 2020, 2021 and even 2022, many children – we calculate about 370 million children - lost access to meals in schools during the pandemic. In many cases, this is the only meal that they received a day”, said Ms. Burbano.

WFP indicated that overall, crucial access to school meal programmes around the world had been restored. According to Ms. Burbano, “Governments worldwide have mobilized in an unprecedented way to ensure that all those children that lost access to meals are now back to receiving these programmes. So we can now say that by and large, in most countries in the world, these programmes have been restored back to and even exceeded pre-pandemic levels.”

According to WFP’s report, nearly 420 million children worldwide receive school meals - some 30 million more than in 2020. Efforts to feed children in school received crucial support from the government-led School Meals Coalition, established in 2020 to respond to the pandemic’s impact. Today, 75 governments are members of the coalition, which aims to ensure every child can receive a daily, nutritious meal in school by 2030.

Still, a wide gap persists between wealthy and low-income countries.

“We are concerned that children in the poorest countries are being left behind”, Ms. Burbano said. “By and large, they have not benefitted from this enormous increase. Only 18 per cent of children in low-income countries have access to meals. So you can see this enormous disparity.” According to WFP, some 60 per cent of children in wealthy countries receive meals in schools.

Ms. Burbano stressed that urgent financing was required to alleviate these inequalities. “The other big message that we are highlighting in terms of red flags is that while even low-income governments have stepped up their financing in the midst of a huge financial crunch, donors have stepped back”, she said, calling for a reversal of this trend.

“These programmes are crucial not just because they feed children. And as I've said, this is important in the midst of a food crisis, but they are really much more than that”, Ms. Burbano said. They support keeping children in school, especially girls. They make sure that they get nutritious and healthy meals, not just food in their bellies. But they also help farmers. They create markets all over the world and they create jobs.”

In the report, WFP notes that four million jobs have been created through school meal programmes, most of them for women. The agency also highlights that according to research, school meals programmes can increase enrolment rates and attendance by nearly 10 per cent.

Bi-Weekly Press Briefing: School Meals Report - WFP

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