Africa: School Feeding Schemes Can Fill Children's Tummies and Farmers' Pockets

analysis

Every day, about 370 million children worldwide benefit from national school feeding programmes. Sometimes it's breakfast; sometimes it's lunch and sometimes it's both. But whatever the meal, school feeding schemes are a nutritional lifeline for these children.

It's been proved repeatedly that being fed at school improves children's attendance and their academic performance. In Kenya, a breakfast programme increased school participation by 8.5% in a randomised control trial of 25 pre-schools. School feeding schemes are also helping to greatly improve girls' access to primary education. During a recent research trip to Banu, a rural farming community in Ghana's Sissala East District, I saw first hand how that country's school feeding scheme is helping children.

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