As part of its strategy to achieve food sovereignty, the government of Bolivia approves a new law to regulate complimentary school meals and to foster a social economy by means of produces purchased from local producers.

Law No 622 on School Feeding in the Framework of Food 
Sovereignty and Plural Economy, approved by the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, aims to contribute to educational performance and promote the permanence of students in the educational entities of the Plurinational Education System, through a safe, opportune and culturally appropriated diet.  

Clementina Garnica, senator and proponent of the approbation of Law No 622, indicated that “this law works because it promotes and fosters the production and consumption of local produces; considering the production and dietary characteristics of our communities, which strengthens our territories”.

In 2007, in the midst of a debate on the necessity to have a normative framework to universalize and define complementary school feeding, the National Council for Food and Nutrition (CONAN), the responsible entity to strengthen food and nutrition programs, established a forum on Complementary School Feeding (ACE).

It was in that forum that the first draft of the law was elaborated, before being later sent to the Bolivian Parliamentary Front for Food Sovereignty and Good Living, for its assessment and further development. The group of parliamentarians, established in 2012 with senators and deputies engaged in eradicating hunger and malnutrition, worked to develop the drafts which led to the current law and initiated discussions and its acceptance, with the help of FAO.   

FAO collaborated with Bolivia and other countries in the discussions and technical support for school feeding, with the support of the Brazilian government through the Program for International Cooperation, to strengthen school feeding programs in the region. Moreover, in elaborating this law, the work of FAO’s projects “Integrating the Right to Adequate Food and Good Governance in National Policies, Legislation and Institutions” and “Support to the Hunger Free Latin America and the Caribbean Initiative” were key, financed respectively by Norway and Spain. Furthermore, the support of the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, which prepared a study on complimentary school feeding in the framework of autonomous entities and proposed recommendations to deal with this matter in the law, was also important.