“School meal programs are one of the smartest investments we can make to support children, families, and communities — every dollar spent is worth many times more down the road in social and economic returns,” said Betty Kibaara, Director in the Food Initiative at The Rockefeller Foundation, which is also a partner of the School Meals Coalition and which recently announced a US$100 million to reach 100 million children over five years by supporting countries’ efforts to expand and further develop their school meal programs, as part of its more than US$220 million nutrition commitment benefiting people, the planet, markets, jobs, and beyond. “Today, hundreds of millions of children are still living without the massive benefits provided by a daily, simple, nutritious meal. This report shows there are practical and effective steps we can all take to reach those children and ensure their futures are full of health and opportunity.”
School meals, which feed an estimated 418 million children worldwide, have consistently been shown to improve nutrition, increase attendance (school feeding programs in Burkina Faso, Uganda, and Kenya saw a boost in school attendance by up to 3%, especially among girls), and drive economic growth and development. Providing a significant return on investment, ranging from US$7 to US$35 for every dollar spent, the World Food Programme (WFP) also calculates that for every 100,000 school meals served, 1,377 jobs are created. However, approximately only 20% of children in LICs receive school meals.
Despite widespread political commitment to providing nutritious school meals for children, funding these programs remains a challenge. The report estimates that increasing coverage meals rates to 60% of school children (~236 million additional children) in low-income countries (LICs) and low-middle-income countries (LMICs) by 2030 will require an incremental investment of $3.6 billion every year or around $10.8 billion in cumulative annual average spending. The report highlights a series of innovative mechanisms that might help to bridge the financing gap required to accelerate the expansion and improvement of school meals where needs are greatest. These include, but are not limited to:
- Expanding school meals with “sin” products and earmarking tax revenue. To increase school meal coverage, the report considers increasing taxes on so-called “sin” products, such as alcohol, tobacco, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), and ultra-processed foods. Showing how this has been done successfully in the Philippines to transform its national health financing, corrective taxes primarily on alcohol and tobacco could help mobilize upwards of .7% of GDP in revenues in LICs and LMICs, depending on the country. Translated into financial terms, sin taxes could mobilize an additional $52 billion annually — almost five times the annual average cost of achieving the 60% school meal coverage target.
- Converting natural resource wealth into school meal investments. Over half of global petroleum discoveries since 2010 have occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, along with substantial finds of natural gas and rare minerals. While it is estimated that natural resource rents account for 9% of Africa’s GDP, this investment has not yet been channeled into social sector priorities — including school feeding. Looking at lessons learned from Bolivia, Botswana, and Indonesia, which have demonstrated that natural resource wealth can play a positive role in financing school feeding, the report lays out opportunities to increase investments in school meal programs via natural resources rents in three countries: (1) Mozambique, which illustrates the risks associated with the “resource curse” and the opportunities for breaking the curse; (2) Senegal, which is well placed to finance an expansion of school feeding through hydrocarbon revenues; and (3) Tanzania, where the development of hydrocarbon revenues and debate over their use was delayed by political turmoil.
- Minimizing debt as a limiting factor. The scale of the debt crisis facing LICs and LMICs represents an opportunity to mobilize public finance for key social sector investments, and it has generated a renewed interest in debt swaps — a long-established part of the innovative finance toolkit. The African Development Bank has estimated that debt swaps released $185 million a year 1989-2015, with the WFP reporting 12 debt-swap arrangements in six developing countries 2007-2023. This includes facilitating its largest debt swap in 2017, which released $40 million for school feeding over five years in Mozambique, and as result around 300,000 children of the 9 million enrolled in school receive meals through the WFP’s support for the country’s national school feeding program.
- Harnessing climate finance for school feeding. Climate finance flows have increased dramatically over the past five years; however, while school feeding programs offer significant opportunities for carbon mitigation and, more especially, adaptation, they have been bypassed by climate finance. It is largely invisible in Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) papers through which governments table their Paris Agenda commitments, with the exception of Burundi and Malawi. Yet, procurement for school meals can support more resilient rural livelihoods, create markets for drought-resistant seeds, and enhance food security by increasing access to biofortified foods. Governments can use public procurement budgets to create incentives for low-carbon, regenerative farming. School meal menus can be designed to encourage the development of less meat-intensive diets, which in turn can help reduce the carbon footprint of food systems.
Multilateral development banks (MDBs) could also play a far greater role in financing for school meals by squeezing more finance out of current balance sheets through innovative financing instruments. Examples include hybrid capital, guarantees — or “callable capital” — provided by their shareholders, risk guarantees, such as those provided by the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd), co-financing with philanthropic foundations, and more.
While innovative finance can support countries in mobilizing new and additional resources for school meals, there remains an urgent need to increase national tax-to-GDP ratios and strengthen the efficiency and equity of public spending. Despite aid cuts, development finance — particularly in the form of grants and highly concessional loans — remains critical to supporting heightened country ambitions to reach more children.
About the Sustainable Financing Initiative for School Health and Nutrition (SFI)
The Sustainable Financing Initiative for School Health and Nutrition (SFI) is an initiative of the School Meals Coalition, led by the Learning Generation Initiative (LGI) at Education Development Center (EDC). It works with governments and donors to help countries identify multi-year financing opportunities for school meal programmes with a particular focus on low- and lower-middle-income countries (LICs & LMICs). It does this through research and analysis, direct country support and raising the financing of school meals on the global agenda.
About The Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a pioneering philanthropy built on collaborative partnerships at the frontiers of science, technology, and innovation that enable individuals, families, and communities to flourish. We make big bets to promote the well-being of humanity. Today, we are focused on advancing human opportunity and reversing the climate crisis by transforming systems in food, health, energy, and finance. For more information, sign up for our newsletter at www.rockefellerfoundation.org/subscribe and follow us on X @RockefellerFdn and LinkedIn @the-rockefeller-foundation.
