Brasília, November 11, 2022 - The project Consolidation of School Feeding Programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean, executed within the framework of the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation Programme, launched the publication 'The Situational State of Sustainable Schools 2021', which makes a mapping and highlights the results of this work carried out in 15 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, reaching more than 23,000 schools.

The objective of the publication is to facilitate the understanding of the methodology and to disseminate the achievements to a broad audience involved in school feeding, such as public policy managers, government authorities, technicians, NGOs, school principals, nutritionists, fathers and mothers, farmers, cooperatives, associations, students, teachers, among others. Today, this methodology is present in 536 municipalities of the participating countries, ensuring a key source of income for 9,356 family farmers through public procurement of their production to 23,385 schools. 

The design of the Sustainable Schools methodology, created in 2012, integrates the actions of the trilateral south-south cooperation on school feeding executed jointly by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (ABC/MRE), the National Fund for Educational Development (FNDE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Created from the premise that schools are privileged spaces for community convergence and that the social and economic development of a city is associated with educational inclusion, the methodology consists of implementing a sustainable school feeding “model” based on six components.

These components are: interinstitutional and intersectoral articulation; social and community participation; adequate infrastructure for schools; food and nutritional education with the implementation of educational school gardens; healthy and adequate menus; and public procurement from family farmers.

The components were developed in schools and municipalities selected by the governments, always respecting the reality and peculiarities of each participating country. Thus, these educational centers constitute learning laboratories on the school feeding policy, with the aim of achieving the scaling of the school feeding policy at the national level.

Legal frameworks

In the last 10 years, school feeding laws have been approved and implemented in countries such as Paraguay, Guatemala, Honduras and Ecuador, based on the Sustainable Schools methodology implemented, consolidating school feeding as a state policy. Currently, El Salvador is working on a school feeding law project based on the experience of Sustainable Schools.