Crucial elements of standing up a new, sustainable school feeding program in sub-Saharan Africa

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

School-based feeding programs contribute to the sustainability of student enrollment, attendance, attentiveness, and performance. This panel will share lessons learned about the necessary elements to stand up new, sustainable school feeding programs in sub-Saharan Africa. The presenters implement McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition projects funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The chair and discussant represent USDA.

How is the topic relevant to comparative and international education, sustainability, or a SIG?
School feeding programs contribute to the sustainability of student enrollment, attendance, attentiveness, and performance. Educators, policy leaders, academics, and others recognize that activities outside of the classroom impact a child’s ability to thrive within the classroom, including her nutrition and food security. Similarly, there is widespread recognition that such efforts require coordination and capacity building in government, school administrators, parent-teacher associations, the private sector, and others.

The proposed topic is relevant to the CIES 2019 theme and international education generally.
The proposed topic may interest members of the Africa SIG, Early Childhood Development SIG, and the Economics and Finance of Education SIG, among others.

What is the need or the problem that the program or intervention tries to address?
Though a large and convincing body of knowledge suggests that school feeding is a worthwhile investment in developing nations, there is less evidence about how to build a regional or nationwide school feeding program for the ground up. This panel session – chaired by a representative from USDA and presented by three people with deep experience in sub-Saharan Africa – will fill some knowledge gaps on the handful of crucial elements needed to begin and sustain a large-scale school feeding program in a developing nation.

What advice do you offer or do you seek at CIES, and how can it address similar challenges elsewhere?
We offer advice on the handful of crucial elements needed to begin and sustain a large-scale school feeding program in a developing nation. These include:
• Achieving community buy-in
• Achieving government buy-in
• Capacity building in commodity management, food preparation, estimating quantities
• Linking the schools to food supply chains

We seek advice from CIES attendees about other crucial elements or how to achieve community and government buy-in.

This discussion is applicable to developing nations across the globe, but especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

What would you have done differently, knowing what you know now about the project or program?
USDA and its partners are still implementing the projects, so learning is ongoing. However, common mistakes include:
• Failing to adequately engage with ministries of finance or education department treasurers to build their capacity on how to pay for school feeding programs.
• Failing to adequately engage with policymakers on the advantages and disadvantages of various food procurement options – international importation versus national sourcing versus home-grown school feeding.

What was the impact of the project on the problem it targeted? How was the project’s impact assessed?
The projects have made significant progress toward building new, sustainable school feeding programs in difficult operating environments in sub-Saharan Africa. All presenters have implementation models endorsed by national governments and community-level stakeholders, and those models have been tested and refined for the last 3-5 years.

Assessments include:
• Process evaluations of school feeding sustainability within the policy and capacity-building areas
• Stakeholder perceptions of sustainability
• Evaluating a school’s progress toward sustainability milestones in terms of capacities
• Evaluating a school’s progress toward sustainability milestones in terms of meals served

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Ingrid Ardjosoediro, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Individual Presentations

• Capacity building: a crucial element of standing up a new, sustainable school feeding program in sub-Saharan Africa - Patrick Gallagher, Nascent Solutions Inc.

• Generating government buy-in: a crucial element of standing up a new, sustainable school feeding program in sub-Saharan Africa - Alessandra McCormack, USDA

• Working towards community-led school feeding in Northern Senegal – how the communities of Saint Louis generate community buy-in to sustain school meals - Norma Toussaint, Counterpart

• Achieving Sustainability Through Complementary Literacy and Teacher Training Activities - Beth Sheehy, Planet Aid

Discussant

• Alessandra McCormack, USDA