Energising School Feeding
Cooking school meals requires energy. In some countries, families are asked to contribute to fuel expenses or to provide firewood, failing which, children may be refused school meals. The acquisition of fuel, whether it is purchased or collected, is a considerable burden for schools that risks hindering the scale and scope of WFP’s programmes. Electric cooking is particularly clean and efficient, especially when electric pressure cookers (EPC) are used. WFP aims to lead the way toward the electric cooking revolution by trialling EPC in schools and households. WFP has prepared a new 10-year strategy for school feeding which was launched in early 2020. For the next ten years, WFP will continue working with governments and partners to ensure that 73 million primary school children living in extreme poverty have access to meals in school, complemented by a broader package of health and nutrition services to drive local economic development through linking school feeding to smallholder farmers wherever possible. WFP will build on its existing operations in countries and leverage its expertise, tools, systems and partnerships to support countries achieve their human capital objectives through increased investments in nutrition, quality of learning, gender equality and healthy growth.The potential scale of the Energising School Feeding approach, affecting schools and their surrounding communities, is therefore considerable. It would constitute an important contribution to ensuring food security and also lead the way to a far reaching clean energy transition in the developing world.
