Evaluating the sustainability of school meals in Kenya after transition to government management

• In Event: Improving early grade literacy through sustainable school meals programmes

Proposal

Low literacy levels in Kenya have been a persistent challenge. On average, 38.5 percent of the Kenyan adult population above the age of 15 years is illiterate. About 29.9 percent of youth and 49 percent of adults are illiterate. There are also wide regional disparities within the country, with arid counties recording the lowest literacy rate of 8 percent compared to highest rate in Nairobi at 87.1 percent (Government of Kenya 2018). Hunger is a barrier to students learning. Attending classes hungry severely impacts children’s and adolescents’ abilities to learn, to thrive, and to realize their full potentials (Plaut et al 2017). World Food Programme (WFP) has had a school feeding programme in Kenya since 1980. The key objective of the programme is to enhance access to education while contributing to improved literacy of school-aged children and increased use of health and dietary practices. As part of a strategy for programme sustainability, transition to the Government of Kenya (GOK) led schools’ meals programme began in 2009. In July 2018, the programme was fully transitioned to GOK, with the government taking full responsibility of management and provision of school meals.
An evaluation was commissioned that covered the years 2016-2022 of the WFP programme. The evaluation used a quasi-experimental design to compare (1) WFP and control schools in neighboring counties with comparable socio-economic activities in order to measure the impact of the project on literacy (numeracy), attentiveness, attendance, enrolment, completion, community understanding of benefits of education and health and dietary practices outcomes and (2) to compare WFP and GOK schools to assess sustainability. Selected control, GOK, and WFP schools were matched using propensity score matching for comparability, with 689 students sampled per study arm. Mixed methods were employed including focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and quantitative surveys. Literacy and numeracy outcomes were assessed using UWEZO learner’s assessment tool.
The evaluation concluded that school feeding contributes to a statistically significant improvement in literacy (Kiswahili and English) as well as in numeracy of learners.
The evaluation further shows that enrolment, attendance and completion levels are consistently higher for WFP schools compared to other schools - a result that has been sustained after the hand-over. GOK schools registered statistically significant results too. The evaluation concludes therefore that sustained capacity building efforts is likely to produce significant returns on investment in terms of improved education, nutrition and food security results after handover.
From the findings of this evaluation, WFP will discuss what factors are important for sustainability and challenges that countries intending to transition to Government-led programmes may face.
To enhance the successes of transition, WFP and GOK should have increased effort (as part of the transition) to strengthening monitoring systems, oversight and supervision, which has traditionally been a strength of WFP.

Author

• Robert ACKATIA-ARMAH, UNWFP