Today, Bolivia offers an example of a highly decentralised approach to school feeding as there is not yet a national program. The name was changed to Complementary School Feeding (Alimentación Complementaria Escolar - ACE) in 2007 to help highlight that food provided at school has to be regarded as a complement to the food children consume at home. ACE programs can be divided into two broad categories. The rural model provides breakfast and/or lunch cooked in the schools premises. It was first promoted by the government with support from WFP and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in highly food insecure municipalities. In the urban model, initially introduced by capital cities’
municipalities, service delivery is outsourced to private companies, which provide ready to consume foods for breakfast. Over the years, municipal governments have developed a multiplicity of service delivery modalities and the necessity of having an established national programme and a common policy framework has become evident. In 2007, a multisectorial ACE working group was established to draft a school feeding law. At the time of drafting this case study, three documents were under discussion: a draft ACE Law (Anteproyecto de Ley de Alimentación Complementaria Escolar) (ME, CT-CONAN, 2012), its Regulatory Decree, and the Technical and Administrative Guidelines, Quality Standards for Complementary School Feeding in Bolivia (ME, 2013b). In addition, an ACE team was established in
2008 within the Intracultural, Intercultural and Pluri linguism Unit of the Ministry of Education (ME) and is currently drafting its first National School Feeding Plan. This case study is based on a comprehensive literature review. The main sources are the two technical diagnoses of school feeding in Bolivia conducted in 2003 and 2008 by the Ministry of Education with technical support from the WFP (ME & WFP, 2007; ME & WFP, 2009). These diagnoses are based on
official data from ME, Municipal Annual Operational Plans and information from NGOs, international organizations and development partners. The analysis also draws on a report prepared by the World Bank office in Peru as part of a technical assistance project through the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion (MIDIS) (Narvaez: 2012).