School feeding:An overview and recent trends.

Aulo Gelli, IFPRI.

Save the Children Webinar,15th of July 2014, Washington DC.

Agenda• Rethinking school feeding?

– Current status and recent trends• What is school feeding?

– Simple idea but in practice quite complex– Home-Grown School Feeding?

• Potential impact pathways– Education– Health and nutrition– Agriculture– Examples of trade-offs

• Country examples: Ghana, Kenya, Mali

School feeding activity

Enrolment Attendance Educational achievement

Cognition

In-school meals + (♀ effect) +++ +++ +++

Take-home rations + (♀ effect) + ++ ++

Fortified biscuits + ++ + ++

Supplementation + +++ +++ +++

Deworming NA +++ ++ ++

+ = evidence from quasi-experimental evaluation++ = evidence from at least one RCT+++ = evidence from more than one RCTNA = not assessed

(Source: Bundy et al., 2009)

Quality of evidence of impact of health and food on education

Quality of evidence of impact of food on nutrition and health

School feeding activity Anthropometric status Micronutrient status

  Height/stunting Weight/ underweight Iron Hemoglobin/

anemia Iodine Vitamin A Zinc B–vitamins

In-school meals +++ +++ + ++ n.a. + + +Take-home rations ++ ++ n.a. + n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.Multiple micronutrient fortification

++ ++ +++ +++ + +++ +++ +

Multiple micronutrient powder

++ ++ ++ ++ + ++ ++ +

+ = evidence from quasi-experimental evaluation++ = evidence from at least one RCT+++ = evidence from more than one RCTNA = not assessed

(Source: Watkins et al., 2013)

• Sharp decrease in relative costs of school feeding as GDP rises.

• Supporting countries through transition is a key role for development agencies.

Ratio of per child cost of school feeding in relation to per child cost of basic education, versus GDP per capita.

(Source: Bundy et al., 2009)

Planning for sustainability

School feeding transition

(Source: Bundy et al., 2009)

What is school feeding?• School feeding can be defined as the provision

of food to children through schools• Two basic modalities:

– On-site meals or snacks– Take-home rations conditional to attendance

• In some contexts interventions combine on-site programmes with take-home rations targeting a specific group of vulnerable children

(Source: WFP)

Simple idea…but…

• School feeding programmes can be very complex!• No one size fits all, very context specific

– (See examples in the next slides…)

• Opportunity to assist governments in improving scale-up of national programmes– What works where?– How much does it cost?

Linking agriculture, education, health and nutrition

• In 2003 African governments included nationally sourced school feeding in Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP)

• Concept: harness structured demand from school food provision– Win-win for farmers and school children

• NEPAD launched Home-Grown School Feeding programme, with 12 countries invited to implement pilots:– Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Mali and Nigeria are already

implementing programs.

What is HGSF?

• Emphasis has been on national ownership– Home-Grown not limited to “local”

• HGSF can have 3 target groups:– school children– small scale farmers (food production)– community stakeholders (food preparation)– Cross-cutting gender dimension

• HGSF policy objectives include:– For children: improved access to education, cognition and learning

(plus health and nutrition)– For farmers and community stakeholders: improved food security,

including food availability, access and utilisation (see FAO framework)

What is the evidence?

• Evidence underpinning SF and benefits to school children is fairly well established

• Gap in terms of agriculture component• Are explicit interventions (other than cash for

food) required to support impact on agriculture?– E.g. Sensitisation campaigns around improved

production practices, income generation activities and on improved household nutrition practices

• What is the impact on smallholder farmer households?

Complex impact pathways

School feeding

Education

Nutrition & health

Agriculture

Education pathways

Nutrition pathways

Agriculture pathways

Some trade-offs : Back of the envelope figures relative to cooked meals

Dimension \ Modality Biscuits Cooked meals Take-home rations

Outcomes (education) ~1 1 1+

Food quantity per child per year 0.3 1 (25 kg) 3

Cost per child per year 0.5 ($25) 1 ($50) 1.5 ($75)

(School level cost per child per year) ~0.4 ($2.4) 1 ($6) ~0.4 ($2.4)

Cost/protein or energy output ~1 1 NA

Cost/micronutrient output 0.3 1 NA

In Mali…

Tombouctou

Gao

Kidal

Mopti

Ségou

Koulikoro nord

Kayes Nord

Sikasso

Zones targeted for school feeding

Food production zones

Mopti

Koulikoro

Source: WFP.

Whilst in Kenya…

Sources: USAID, (2010); MEASURE DHS, (2009).

Ghana: Decentralised third party model

Impact evaluations in Mali and Ghana

• Current models can be improved to allow for small holder farmer participation– Develop innovative pilot integrating explicit agriculture

and nutrition components (HGSF+)• Strengthen M&E and information flow between

different actors• Proposed approach

1. Pilot innovative model (HGSF+) within existing national programme framework

2. Evaluate pilot (alongside standard SF model) within on-going M&E system strengthening activities

Main study outcomesIndicator Metric

Income Farmer and caterer profits

Distributional effects Farmers and caterers participating in the programme

Schooling Enrolment, attendance, and completion

Attention and cognition Digit span, Raven matrices (Ghana only)

Learning achievement Scores on literacy and maths tests

Physical growth Anthropometric measures of height and weight

Micronutrient status Haemoglobin level (Ghana only)

Diet diversity Household consumption

Social accountability Parental monitoring and motivation

Some reflections…

• Multisectoral intervention– Working across traditional disciplines…

• Data collection timings and seasonality– e.g. agriculture, schooling, health…

• Evaluation around scale-up of national programme– Buy-in from policymakers…

• Changing political context– Coup d'état + invasion in Mali, elections in Ghana…

Thank you!• Slides build on:

– Masset E and Gelli A. Community participation and the links between agriculture, nutrition and education: design of a randomised field experiment of “home-grown” school feeding in Mali. Trials, 2013.

– Gelli A, Kretschmer A, Molinas L. & Regnault de la Mothe M. A comparison of supply chains for school food: exploring operational trade-offs across implementation models. HGSF Working Paper Series . London, PCD, 2012.

www.a4nh.cgiar.orghttp://hgsf-global.org/

School feeding cost and outcomes

Source: Galloway R, Kristjansson E, Gelli A, Meir U, Espejo F, and Bundy, D. 2009.

Costs and cost-efficiency estimates

Full costs (USD)

Energy (kcals)

Iron (mg)

Protein (g)

std. cost per 100 kcals delivered

std. cost per (g) protein delivered

std. cost per (mg)

iron delivered

std. cost per 100 (mcg) vitamin A delivered

School meals(n=44)

48 735 9 20 7 3 8 25

Fortified biscuits (n=8)

23 262 7 7 8 3 3 9

• Take home rations, targeted to households, cost US$ 75 per child per year

• Share of food costs: school meals (56%), biscuits (74%), take-home rations (68%)

Randomised field experiments• Impact evaluation of national programmes

– 116 schools, randomised• 29 SF standard • 29 HGSF+ pilot• 58 no school feeding (control group- get SF after year 2)

• Integrate evaluations within monitoring of the national programme– Government regular monitoring (monthly/quarterly)

• 2 year studies– Mali baseline completed January 2012 – Ghana baseline underway June 2013

58 districts (116 schools)

29 HGSF+districts

(58 schools)

29 GSFPdistricts

(58 schools)

29 HGSF+ schools

(725 HH)

29 control schools

(580 HH)

29 GSFP schools

(725 HH)

29 control schools

(580 HH)

14 HGSF++ schools

(225 HH)

15 HGSF+ schools

(225 HH)

15 GSFP schools

(225 HH)

1st stage randomisation

2nd stage randomisation

3rd stage randomisation (Ghana only)

15 control schools

(225 HH)