This guide provides basic minimum principles to Member States that can be used when revisiting or updating their school nutrition programs. Furthermore, since there is no regional school nutrition best practices document providing Member States a basis for optimizing the implementation of school nutrition programs and a common monitoring and evaluation framework, this guide will fill that gap. Finally this document is a response to the request made by Member States to have guidelines on school health and nutrition programs. The document is structured around the five quality standards (or policy goals that form the basis of an effective school nutrition program) recognized to develop school nutrition programs. These same quality standards were used in the questionnaire to assess the current state of school nutrition programs in SADC Member States. These standards are: the design and implementation, policy and legal framework, financial capacity, institutional coordination for implementation and community involvement. In addition, this document includes a monitoring framework section to help streamline the data collection process in SADC Member States and allow the SADC Secretariat to assess the socio-economic benefits of these programs across the region.