Social Sustainability

School Feeding

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Definition

School feeding programmes provide meals, snacks or take-home rations to children at school, delivering simultaneous benefits: improved nutrition and learning, increased enrolment and attendance (especially of girls), and a safety net for poor households. The World Food Programme describes school meals as the most widespread social safety net globally, reaching hundreds of millions of children; WFP's school feeding reached roughly 80 million children in recent years.

References

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This reference provides supporting context for how “School Feeding” is defined and used.

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Overview

How it is used

The concept structures national school meal policies, WFP operations, the School Meals Coalition (launched 2021), and local food procurement programmes such as Brazil's PNAE.

Why it matters

School feeding is where food security, education and farm policy meet in a single daily institution — one of development's best-evidenced interventions.