Home-Grown School Meals Program

Contributed by GCNF Delegate Charles Njeru, Programme Officer, Country Programme, World Food Programme, Kenya

Home-Grown School Meals Programme (HGSMP) is a government-led school feeding programme that provides food produced and purchased within a country for vulnerable school children. World Food Programme (WFP) is working with the Ministry of Education (MOE) to transform the regular school feeding programme into a more sustainable HGSMP which will act as a productive safety net, targeting food insecurity. Both the MOE and WFP see the gradual expansion and success of the HGSMP as the key to sustainability and the principal component of WFP’s exit strategy for HGSMP.

School meals programmes have long proved effective in improving school enrolment, improving and stabilizing school attendance as well as increasing progression and completion rates in primary schools. It has also been shown that schools act as critical safety nets for chronically food insecure communities. In Kenya, for example, an external evaluation of the school meals programme revealed that the benefits of school meals were many. The importance of school meals as a safety net was also demonstrated by the fact that for more than half of the school children, the mid-day meal provided by the school was the only meal they had.

In recognition of the numerous educational and nutritional benefits of the school meals programme, WFP and MOE agreed to a transitional arrangement from regular to homegrown school meals programme in which WFP hands over 50,000 children annually. In July 2009, the Government of Kenya (GOK) demonstrated its commitment to the transition by taking over the initial caseload of 540,000 school children previously benefiting from WFP support. This undertaking by the Government saw WFP’s caseload drop from about 1.2 million children to 720,500. The bulk of the funding for the HGSMP was provided by the GOK while the rest of the funding was provided by the Japanese Government. The Government has further demonstrated its commitment to support the programme by institutionalizing the funding through its annual budgetary allocations managed by the Ministry of Finance.

The Kenyan Government Model (WFP) is slightly different from that implemented by the Government in that while WFP procures and delivers food to the schools, the Government transfers cash directly to the schools for local purchases. The selected schools follow procurement guidelines stipulated by MOE to procure food from farmers, local cooperatives, the National Cereals and Produce Board stores, or competitive local traders. WFP, on its part, is working with the Ministries of Education and Agriculture on linking HGSMP to WFP’s Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative. This model is indeed unique; no other WFP-supported country is piloting such a system. So far, the system has proved to be easy for the government to manage because it transfers the logistics of food procurement and delivery to the schools.

To further demonstrate its desire to support the transition, the Government has undertaken to takeover a further 53,000 children in January 2011. On its part, WFP has continued to provide both financial and technical support to MOE  to ensure not only a smooth transition but also a technically viable system. To support the system, WFP, in collaboration with the MOE organized a two-day training for schools targeted to receive GOK funding in January 2011. The training targeted all the Head Teachers and Chairpersons of the school management committees (SMCs) as well as the respective District Education Officials. WFP recognizes the important role played by the Chairpersons of the SMCs in linking the programme with the community and the reason to involve them, at least during the initial stages of the programme.  Needless to say, district education officials are crucial both in the implementation and performance assessment of the programme.

Given that schools meals programmes in Kenya are aimed to support vulnerable children from food insecure districts, mainly from arid and semi-arid areas, the targeting criteria used to progressively select districts to be handed over takes into account both food security and education indicators. Key to the targeting criteria are food poverty indicators, net enrolment and attendance rates, primary school completion rates, as well as gender parity. WFP initially hands over districts that are relatively better off in terms of the targeting criteria and plans to progressively move out to the more arid districts as the capacity of the MOE to manage the programme is enhanced.

In addition to availing the benefits of a regular school meals programme, HGSMP also aims to:

• Link school feeding to local agricultural production
• Increase small-scale farmers’ (SSF) access to the school feeding market
• Encourage improved production practices among SSF
• Increase direct purchases from smallholders

Following the takeover of the initial caseload in July 2009, joint monitoring exercises have been organized by MOE and WFP to review the level of preparedness and progress made so far in terms of programme implementation and adherence to procurement guidelines, as well as identify challenges. The monitoring missions observed that the disbursement of the funds was very efficient and that all the schools in the programme had established management committees to coordinate the procurement of the food. In addition, some of the schools had taken the initiative to coordinate with other line ministries such as Ministries of Public Health and Agriculture to ensure the quality of the commodities.  A key success of the programme was the pull-back to school of children who had dropped out resulting in a boost in attendance. The findings clearly demonstrate the value of the cash transfer method as one that can be activated quickly and meals availed to children within only a few days due to the proximity of the food supply.

Charles Njeru

Programme Officer

Country Programme

World Food Programme, Kenya