Профиль участника
Д-р. Naira Harutyunyan
Организация:
Yerevan Haybusak University
Страна:
Армения
Область (области) знаний:
I am working on:
food security, clean energy, climate change and sustainable development
Д-р. Naira Harutyunyan
Author of submission (name, surname, position, organization)
Naira Harutyuyan, PhD, Lecturer, Yerevan Haybusak University, Yerevan, Armenia
Title of your example
Sustainable School Feeding in Armenia
Theme
School food and nutrition programs linked to the agricultural sector
Date, location and geographic scope of your example (regional, sub-regional, national, local)
Main responsible entity(ies) for the implementation of your example
Key objectives and implementation approach of your example (approximately 600 words)
The Sustainable School Feeding Programme objective are:
Funding and technical assistance of your example (approximately 200 words)
Key stakeholders involved. Describe the cross-sectoral coordination mechanism of your example, if any (approximately 300 words)
How your example addresses food security and nutrition challenges. Describe linkages to social protection policies / school food programs / sustainable food systems (approximately 600 words)
After the global crisis of 2008, Armenia has experienced significant recession and suffered decline in GDP and rise of food and fuel prices. As a result, 50 percent of families had to buy cheaper products and cut their food consumption; 25 percent of families had to buy their food on credit and ask relatives for help; 5 percent of families limited the amount consumed by their adult members to allow small children to eat. Furthermore, more than 10 percent of students started to skip school more often, due to the need to work at home and help their parents. This resulted in food emergency, especially for schoolchildren in the remote regions and budgetary pressure on safety net expenditure. The urgency was matured to prevent food and nutrition crisis of children through implementation of school feeding programme.
In 2010, the World Food Programme with the financial support of the Russian Federation launched “Development of Sustainable School Feeding” Programme to assist the government of Armenia to mitigate economic crisis impacts on children by enhancing their food and nutrition status through school meals. The program entailed initial transition period of three years to assist schoolchildren in the three most vulnerable and food insecure marzes/regions: Syunik, Vayots Dzor and Ararat. During the pilot period, the project did not cover all schools in the target regions, but prioritized those in the most food insecure areas within these regions which were characterised by high levels of unemployment and food insecure populations. In case of success the programme was supposed to be enlarged into other regions and further to involve senior school students as well. Thus, in 2014, a gradual handover of the programme started to the Armenian Government that took responsibility to ensure the base funding of school feeding with estimated cost of AMD140 per student per day to provide 280 kcal/day. Today, the national school feeding programme covers the provinces of Tavush, Vayots Dzor, Syunik and Ararat, providing school meals to 29000 primary children amounting to about one third of the total number of primary school students in the country. Next in the row are the provinces of Shirak and Aragatsotn.
The programme also entails renovation of school kitchen infrastructure, developing of local agriculture and food processing and job creation. Proposed project will fully align with the Governmental efforts on provision of locally produced food for school feeding in the proposed regions.
During the transition period two models of school meals were introduced: 1) Hot meal for schools that meet standards; and 2) School milk, snacks or fruit bars for schools that did not have the minimum facilities required for the provision of hot meals until they could upgrade their kitchen facilities. In general, school students receive six to eight different food items that make up nutritious and tasty meals. During the 2016 Global Child Nutrition Forum in Yerevan, the participant of the Forum from all over the world had a chance to visit some of the schools and taste themselves the school meals. Schools also conduct various initiatives such as interactive games with children to train them on healthy eating and hygiene.
The program also targeted strengthening governmental capacity to develop a national school meals policy. In 2013 the Government of Armenia adopted the Strategy of Sustainable School Feeding elaborated under the programme.
The School Feeding Programme has a local food purchase approach and emphasizes nutrition, social protection and links with smallholder farmers. This enables to enhance the overall food security status on the country level. Thus, the long-term advantages of the project include increase of access to education, improvement of health and nutrition of school-age children as well as improvement of social and economic development of the country.
Overall, the intended nationalization of the project will help more children to exercise their rights to nutrition, health and education, which contributes directly to at least nine Sustainable Development Goals and is also aligned with the priorities of the 2014–2025 Armenia Development Strategy — human capital development and improvement of social protection. The Programme complements to the achievement of the UN World Food Programme Strategic Goal 4 - Reduce chronic hunger and malnutrition - and Strategic Goal 5 - Increase the capacity of countries to reduce hunger, including through hand-over strategies and local purchase. Moreover, the National School Feeding program complements governmental reforms in sphere of school programs, which makes the whole program an integral part of a wider social protection policy.
What are the elements needed for the practice to be institutionally, socially, economically and environmentally resilient and/or sustainable? (approximately 500 words)
The impact of your example on national policies and people’s lives. What indicators have been used to measure it? (approximately 400 words)
Key lessons (positive and negative) that can be learned from your example and how gaps, obstacles and any other adverse conditions were addressed (approximately 600 words)
Success factors and lessons learned
Further actions for improvement
Sources and/ or additional background material (please provide weblinks when possible or send the material to [email protected])
1) WFP hands over the implementation of the School Feeding Program in Tavush province to the Government of Armenia. URL: http://www.un.am/en/news/625
2) Meal Deal: Education minister calls for continuation, expansion of school feeding program in Armenia. URL: https://www.armenianow.com/en/society/education/2016/05/25/armenia-educ…
3) Food Security and the School Feeding System: experience of the Russian Federation. URL: http://old.minfin.ru/en/financial_affairs/Dev_Assis/concept_rus/index.p…