Transforming education through school nutrition

IPNEd is working to drive action to re-establish, improve and scale up food and education systems, including school meals programmes. Credit: School Meals Coalition

• The International Parliamentary Network for Education (IPNEd) is a committed member of the School Meals Coalition, a growing partnership of organisations and governments coming together to advocate for a healthy meal every day for every child. 

• We were encouraged to see the case for school feeding made in several sessions at the Transforming Education Summit.

• At an IPNEd facilitated meeting with MPs from Pakistan and the World Food Programme, an action plan to increase school feeding in Pakistan was agreed.

The case for school feeding

Countries show a 9% increase in enrolment rates when school meals are provided and an 8% increase in attendance.

Efficient school meal programmes yield returns of US$9 for every US$1 invested, directly creating some 2,000 new jobs for every 100,000 children fed. School feeding often supports local catering businesses, many led by women.

In most cases, a school meal consists of either lunch or breakfast and accounts for about 30% of a child’s daily nutrition needs. In many developing countries, meals are provided during the morning as children may be arriving at school on empty stomachs.

When many education systems collapsed in May 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, 370 million children lost access to school feeding. For 74 million of those children, school meals were the only meal they received per day. This loss highlighted the importance of school feeding as a social safety net, which had protected the wellbeing of the most vulnerable children. 

This year, we are starting to see an education system recovery, and we now urgently need to get school meals back on track. 

School nutrition at the Transforming Education Summit 

The Rt Hon Gordon Brown and Carmen Burbano in one of the sessions featuring the case for school feeding at TES.

Last week, IPNEd was in New York to take part in the United Nations Transforming Education Summit (TES) with a delegation of parliamentarians, and we were encouraged to see the case for school feeding made strongly in several sessions in and around the Summit. 

At one of the sessions, the UN Special Envoy for Education the Rt Hon Gordon Brown said: 

"I want to speak up this week for the 153 million children that are suffering from a shortage of food, famine and malnutrition. School lessons are not enough, there has to be School Meals as well." 

At ‘Hungry Children = A Failed Education System’, we were delighted to be joined by Tanzanian IPNEd member Neema Lugangira MP, a strong advocate of Tanzania’s recent decision to join the School Meals Coalition. Neema was joined by IPNEd member Arielle Kayabaga MP of the Parliament of Canada. 

During the Summit, IPNEd Executive Director Joseph Nhan-O’Reilly convened a meeting between our global co-chair Hon. MNA Mehnaz Akber Aziz, the Minister of Federal Education of Pakistan Hon Rana Tanveer Hussain, our regional representative for North America Mike Lake MP and the Director of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) School Feeding Division Carmen Burbano. 

"Almost half of the people facing acute hunger are children. We need to connect the two conversations, otherwise all our investments in education can be thrown out the window." - said Carmen Burbano.

At this meeting, a plan to turn our shared commitment to children’s nutrition and learning into action in Pakistan was agreed.

At TES, IPNEd convened a meeting between our parliamentary delegation and Carmen Burbano of the WFP.

IPNEd’s commitment to scaling up school feeding

With over 90% of school feeding programmes worldwide being funded and managed by governments, their quality is crucially dependent upon parliamentary systems. With the right evidence, support and leadership, parliamentarians can play a vital role in growing public and political support for school meal programmes by leveraging their functions as advocates, legislators, shapers, and approvers of funding, and scrutinisers of governments.

IPNEd is currently in the early stages of a partnership with the WFP, through which we aim to increase parliamentarians’ understanding of and commitment to school feeding.

“The best and most sustainable school feeding programmes are ones that have strong national ownership backed by politics and laws that support quality sourcing and provision of a daily meal for children at school” said IPNEd Executive Director Joseph Nhan-O’Reilly.

“As we saw in New York during the Transforming Education Summit through the leadership of MNA Mehnaz Akber Aziz and Pakistan’s Minister for Education, parliamentary knowledge and understanding of the case for school feeding can unlock progress.

“We want to provide more parliamentarians with the information and tools to increase the reach and improve the effectiveness of school meal programmes in their countries and support for school feeding right around the world” he concluded.

Learn more about IPNEd’s past activities connected to school nutrition here and here.