Globally, there are 370 million children receiving school meals every day. Coverage is least in low-income countries, where the need is greatest and where program costs are viewed as high in comparison with the benefits to public health alone.
The creation of Human Capital is dependent upon good health and education throughout the first 8,000 days of life, but there is currently under-investment in health and nutrition after the first 1,000 days.
In 2019, 135 million people in 55 countries were in food crises or worse, and 2 billion people did not have regular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food.
This sourcebook documents and analyzes a range of government-led school meals programs to provide decision-makers and practitioners worldwide with the knowledge, evidence and good practice they need to strengthen their national school feeding efforts.
OBJECTIVE: An analysis undertaken jointly in 2009 by the UN World Food Programme, The Partnership for Child Development and the World Bank was published as Rethinking School Feeding to provide guidance on how to develop and implement effective school feeding programmes as a productive safety net