Bundy, Donald; Burbano, Carmen; Grosh, Margaret; Gelli, Aulo; Jukes, Matthew; Drake, Lesley
Description:
This review highlights three main
findings. First, school feeding programs in low-income
countries exhibit large variation in cost, with concomitant
opportunities for cost containment. Second, as countries get
richer, school feeding costs become a much smaller
proportion of the investment in education. For example, in
Zambia the cost of school feeding is about 50 percent of
annual per capita costs for primary education; in Ireland it
is only 10 percent. Further analysis is required to define
these relationships, but supporting countries to maintain an
investment in school feeding through this transition may
emerge as a key role for development partners. Third, the
main preconditions for the transition to sustainable
national programs are mainstreaming school feeding in
national policies and plans, especially education sector
plans; identifying national sources of financing; and
expanding national implementation capacity. Mainstreaming a
development policy for school feeding into national
education sector plans offers the added advantage of
aligning support for school feeding with the processes
already established to harmonize development partner support
for the education for all-fast track initiative.