Social protection has a key role in strengthening local food systems and in promoting inclusive rural transformation.

At the 2021 Food Systems Summit, convened by the UN Secretary-General, Home-Grown School Feeding programmes were considered a game changer for strengthening local food systems around the world.

 This publication analyzes the Kenya Home-Grown School Meal Programme with respect to achieving multiple objectives - increasing school enrolment and attendance; addressing hunger and malnutrition;  encouraging local production and creating jobs across the school meal value chain and promoting climate adaptive agriculture. The case study identifies and proposes changes in its design to reach its full potential.

Key recommendations include: enhancing support to smallholder farmers; strengthening the procurement process to reduce transaction costs; increasing funding for better coverage; and stronger institutional coordination. Coordinated multi-sectoral approaches  are required to ensure adequate funding for programmes like home grown school feeding that yield multiple benefits across different sectors with potentially very high returns, this will lead to an Increased understanding by member countries, development partners, and FAO staff about the linkages between Home Grown School Feeding programmes and agrifood systems.