School food global hub

Home-grown school feeding and linkages with local agriculture

Home-Grown School Feeding Resource Framework

This resource framework is intended as a guidance tool for stakeholders involved in programme design, implementation and monitoring of Home-Grown School Feeding Programmes and the related policy and institutional environment. It is a knowledge product that harmonizes the existing approaches and tools, and builds on the wealth of expertise and experience with home grown school feeding models. This knowledge product lays the ground for a community of practice to support innovation and learning, as well as replication, adaptation and expansion of successful models of interventions, for impact at scale.

Impact evaluation of home-grown school feeding programmes

This publication seeks to support practitioners by providing methodological guidelines for conducting rigorous impact assessments of Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programmes. While these guidelines are mainly designed for monitoring and evaluation officers working for United Nations agencies, local governments or non-governmental organizations, its contents can be of interest to a wider audience of policymakers, researchers and practitioners interested in multi-sectoral, complex programmes linking agriculture and nutrition.

Public food procurement for sustainable food systems and healthy diets - Volume 1

Sustainable public food procurement represents a key game changer for food systems transformation. It can influence both food consumption and food production patterns. It can deliver multiple social, economic, and environmental benefits towards sustainable food systems for healthy diets.

This publication aims to contribute to the improved understanding, dissemination, and use of public food procurement as a development tool in particular in the case of school meals programmes.

Volume 1 presents further analysis on how public food procurement can be used as a development tool and deliver multiple benefits for multiple beneficiaries. It argues that public food procurement can provide a market for local and smallholder farmers, promote the conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity, and improve the nutrition and health of children and communities.

Public food procurement for sustainable food systems and healthy diets - Volume 2

Sustainable Public Food Procurement (PFP) represents a key game changer for food systems transformation. It can influence both food consumption and food production patterns. It can deliver multiple social, economic, and environmental benefits towards sustainable food systems for healthy diets.

This publication aims to contribute to the improved understanding, dissemination, and use of PFP as a development tool in particular in the case of school meals programmes.

In Volume 2, researchers, policymakers, and development partners can find extensive evidence of the instruments, enablers, and barriers for PFP implementation. It also provides case studies with local, regional, and national experiences from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America.

Aligning policy and legal frameworks for supporting smallholder farming through public food procurement. The case of home-grown school feeding programmes

Despite an increasing recognition of the importance of a conducive and aligned public procurement policy and regulatory frameworks for the implementation of public food procurement initiatives that target smallholder farmers, very little has been said about how such an alignment can be achieved, or about the various tools and legal mechanisms that can be used to do this. This publication aims to contribute to this discussion, bringing an analysis of four country experiences and of the various legal mechanisms that can be used to align the regulatory framework in pursuit of broader development goals by means of public procurement in the form of home-grown school feeding programmes.

Leveraging institutional food procurement for linking small farmers to markets: Findings from WFP’s Purchase for Progress initiative and Brazil’s food procurement programmes

Institutional food procurement programme (IFPPs) refers to initiatives that are designed to link demand for food from institutions such as school, hospitals and school feeding programmes to broader development objectives. In developing countries, IFPPs are increasingly viewed as approaches that facilitate the integration of small farmers into formal food systems. This publication shares lessons from the United Nations World Food Programme’s (WFP) Purchase for Progress pilot initiative (P4P) and Brazil’s National School Feeding Programme (PNAE) and the Public Food Procurement Programme (PAA), with insights on the policy and institutional reforms required for developing and implementing institutional food procurement programmes. In analyzing the needs and constraints of buying institutions and small suppliers, the publication also provides practical guidance on tools and capacity building priorities required to build strong institutional food procurement programmes. The analysis culmin ates in a programmatic framework to support the public sector shape and implement IFPPs.

Compendium of case studies: Successful practices, tools and mechanisms to design, implement and monitor Home-Grown School Feeding programmes in Africa

The first live broadcast Learning Route “Successful practices, tools and mechanisms to design, implement and monitor Home-Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programmes in Africa” took place in December 2020 in Kenya. Twenty-two government officials and decision-makers attended this Learning Route; among these, seven Kenyan government officials travelled from Nairobi to Busia and Siaya Counties to visit and share knowledge with local HGSF initiatives. The remaining fifteen participants from selected African countries experienced the same learning journey on a virtual modality through live broadcast connections and direct interactions with key actors in the field.

This compendium presents main lessons learned, key innovations and good practices of each case analyzed during the learning route.

Learning Route Final Report: Successful practices, tools and mechanisms to design, implement and monitor Home-Grown School Feeding programmes in Africa

The first live broadcast Learning Route “Successful practices, tools and mechanisms to design, implement and monitor Home-Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programmes in Africa” took place in December 2020 in Kenya. Twenty-two government officials and decision-makers attended this Learning Route; among these, seven Kenyan government officials travelled from Nairobi to Busia and Siaya Counties to visit and share knowledge with local HGSF initiatives. The remaining fifteen participants from selected African countries experienced the same learning journey on a virtual modality through live broadcast connections and direct interactions with key actors in the field.

This final report presents main lessons extracted during the case analysis workshops as well as innovative solutions that participating African Governments intend to adopt and scale-up in their respective countries as a follow-up of their participation to the learning route.

Fish in home-grown school feeding

FAO supports the Governments of Angola, Honduras and Peru in developing strategies for home-grown school feeding programs to improve nutrient adequacy of meals fed to schoolchildren through the inclusion of fish products. This short paper highlights case studies from these countries, where fish products for home-grown school feeding programs were developed and tested, with nutritional benefits for children and adolescents as well as for the broader community through improved livelihoods for small-scale fisherfolk. The paper includes recommendations for other countries to learn from this experience in order to integrate these nutrient-dense foods into home-grown school feeding programs, as well as recommendations for future investments.

School feeding and possibilities for direct purchases from family farming

This study provides conceptual inputs and data regarding the situation of school feeding in eleven countries of the Latin America and the Caribbean region; thus, this publication is intended to provide a view of the progress and challenges in the field of school feeding which as a consequence of environmental, food, economic and social crises, has gained special relevance in recent decades. School feeding and possibilities for direct purchases from family farming in Latin America is a FAO contribution towards a better understanding of the subject of school feeding, strengthening the way it is addressed, and enabling the development of sustainable school feeding programmes in the participating countries.