Brasília, October 27, 2023 – To facilitate the access of countries and professionals involved with the school feeding policy to the tools for the implementation of the Sustainable Schools methodology, the project Consolidation of School Feeding Programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean, of the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation Programme, launched a revised and updated Spanish version of the Sustainable Schools guide: conceptual and methodological guidelines.

The methodology, present in more than 23,000 schools in 13 countries in the region, has already benefited more than 1.6 million students. Since its first version in 2014, the guide has been an important input for countries to adapt and improve the quality of their school feeding programmes, as well as it has been a pedagogical tool in the various courses and training offered by the project to students, managers and technicians.

The guide has a history of the implementation of sustainable schools in various countries, as well as a step by step to develop the methodology: the concepts, guidelines and components of this model, which allows generating knowledge, producing interactions between the different levels of government, empower technicians and the school community and promote the sustainability of the school feeding programme at the national level.

The Sustainable Schools methodology

The Sustainable Schools methodology was designed in 2012, as part of the trilateral South-South cooperation actions developed 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), within the scope of the project.

Created from the premise that schools are privileged spaces of community convergence and that the social and economic development of a city is associated with educational inclusion, the methodology consists of a sustainable school feeding reference based on six components, which are developed in schools and municipalities selected by governments, always respecting the reality and peculiarities of each country.

The 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; menus according to nutritional needs and culturally relevant; and public purchases of food from family farming.

“The Sustainable Schools methodology is a strategy used to implement, in some schools in the country, a sustainable school feeding programme based on six components. With this methodological experience, the country has the opportunity to learn more about its potential and challenges. With this joint development of actions between the national, departmental and municipal governments, knowledge that will allow the scaling of this policy at the national level is generated,” highlights Najla Veloso, coordinator of the project Consolidation of School Feeding Programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean, executed within the framework of the Brazil-FAO Cooperation.