The conference, according to the organisers, was also aimed at sharing knowledge and best practices on the implementation of school meal programmes using locally-sourced food.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) have kickstarted a conference to deliberate and scale up existing efforts on school feeding in West Africa.
The two-day conference held in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, drew over a hundred technical experts including government officials, policy makers, donor representatives, and researchers from Education, Agriculture, Gender and Social Protection sectors, from West Africa and beyond.
The conference, led by ECOWAS, is titled; "Investing in Homegrown School Meals to Strengthen Human Capital, Women's Economic Empowerment and Eontribute to Economic Development."
The WFP National Communications Officer, Kelechi Onyemaobi, disclosed this in a statement.
According to the statement, the conference was also aimed at sharing knowledge and best practices on the implementation of school meal programmes using locally-sourced food.
"It offers a unique opportunity for participants to take stock of and shed light on school meals programmes and their impact on countries' economic growth, food systems strengthening and women's empowerment," the statement said.
At the end of the conference, technical experts are expected to establish strategic plans that will help national governments to reinforce political support for the adoption of school meals policies while securing financial investments to scale up the programme, the statement added.
Through this regional school meals conference, participants will discuss and share the most recent regional research and evidence, scale, coverage, and trends in school meals in the region. They will also highlight national approaches, experiences, and best practices in homegrown school meals programmes, as well as country-level constraints to scaling up these programmes.
ECOWAS, WFP speak
Speaking at the opening event, Fatou Sow-Sarr, a professor and ECOWAS Commissioner, stressed that benchmarks in health, nutrition and education make a considerable contribution to economic growth in the sub-region.
He said: "It has been shown that the introduction of school meals programmes based on local production can, among other things, reduce poverty, increase school enrolment, generate income, add value to local products, and promote community cohesion, stability and productivity."
The ECOWAS Commissioner also called on all member states to work on a school meals model that offers children safe, diversified and nutritious food from local sources.
"School canteens can help to strengthen local food systems, in particular by creating stable markets, stimulating local agriculture and improving agricultural production," she stated.
Also speaking, WFP's Regional Director and interim for Western Africa, Margot van der Velden, noted that West Africa has the potential to achieve universal school meals coverage through increased investments in homegrown school meals.
"Homegrown school meals are more than a meal. They are a gateway to a better, healthier, and more prosperous future, and a platform that nourishes the next generation, creating jobs, economic growth, and longer-term development for entire countries," she said.
"At WFP, we are humbled by the progress made by national governments and remain committed to working with all partners to ensure children have access to education and the nutritious food they need to thrive and grow into productive adults tomorrow."
School feeding in Nigeria
Former Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, implemented the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) in 2016.
Through the duration of the programme, Nigeria claimed to have fed over 53,000 schools and 9.9 million pupils in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and employed over 127,000 food vendors and 1,000 aggregators in a 20-day-cycle, the government said.
There is also evidence that the programme temporarily increased the number of children attending schools in some communities.
Despite West Africa grappling with multiple and intertwined crises driven by conflict, climate shocks, a slow economic recovery from COVID-19, and the ripple effect of the crisis in Ukraine, ECOWAS member states feed the largest number of school-aged children in Africa (22.4 million as of 2022, up from 20 million children fed in 2020), according to The 2022 State of School Feeding Worldwide.
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Overall, in the ECOWAS countries, 85 percent of school meals programmes are funded by domestic budgets.
These programmes have created over 200,000 direct jobs in 11 ECOWAS countries mostly for women as cooks, food packers, quality control agents, processors and transporters.
About WFP
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability, and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters, and the impact of climate change.
About ECOWAS
The Economic Community of West African States is a regional political and economic union of 15 countries located in West Africa. It was set up to foster the ideal of collective self-sufficiency for its member states. As a trading union, it is also meant to create a single, large trading bloc through economic cooperation.
Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe
