About
Country Case Studies
Journals & Publications
Countries

Glossary

Adolescence	Adolescence is the phase of life between childhood and adulthood, from ages 10 to 19. As a period of life characterized by important physical, psychological, and social changes - with specific health and developmental needs - adolescence carries new risks, but also provides unique opportunities. Investments in adolescents today will have broad implications not only for their own lives but also for family members and broader communities alike. The adolescents of today will be the parents, the teachers, and the policymakers of tomorrow.
Beneficiaries	Those who receive the benefits of a particular social programme. For this publication, it refers to primary and secondary school-age children between 5-18 years who receive food in school feeding programmes.
Costs	The per-child cost of school feeding is estimated as the total expenditures associated with school feeding activities divided by the number of beneficiaries. The figure reflects costs related to commodity procurement, transportation, storage and handling, and personnel. Community contributions are not included (Gelli & Daryanani, 2013). Cost recovery refers to the programme costs being offset by contributions from the beneficiaries or communities.
Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4)	The proportion of school-attending children receiving school meals
Development partners	An umbrella term for stakeholders that support the development efforts of national, subnational, or local authorities, depending on the particular context. Development partners can include: bilateral donors (national governments providing international development assistance); UN agencies and institutions (WFP, UNICEF, FAO, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNSCN, WHO…); international financial institutions (International Monetary Fund, World Bank, AfDB, AsDB, EBRD, IADB…); other multilateral agencies (e.g. IsDB, EIB, OFID, AIIB…); multi-stakeholder partnership global pooled funds (GPE, ECW…); international non-governmental organizations (Plan International, Save the Children International, demo International, Care International, Relief International, Dubai Cares…); international civil society organizations (Partnership for Child Development, International Food Policy Research Institute, the Millennium Villages Project, GCNF…); and civil society at the local level.
Deworming	A treatment to control the intestinal worm infections such as helminths (roundworm, ringworm, and hookworm) and schistosomiasis. The World Health Organization has recommended giving children albendazole or mebendazole to treat helminths and praziquantel to treat schistosomiasis.
Dietary Diversity	The consumption of a proper balance of different foods that provide all the macronutrients and micronutrients needed for healthy growth and productive life.
Food-based safety nets	Category of interventions that provide direct, regular and predictable food assistance, to the most vulnerable people to: (1) prevent them from falling below a minimum level of food security as a result of a shock; (2) to increase their resilience to shocks; and (3) in some cases, to promote their food security (Grosh et al., 2008). The retail value of a food transfer in the local market is referred to as an income transfer.
Food Systems	Interlocking networks of relationships that encompass the functions and activities involved in producing, processing, marketing, consuming, and disposing of food from agriculture, forestry or fisheries.
Fortification	The practice of deliberately increasing the content of essential micronutrients (such as Vitamin A, iron, iodine, or zinc) to foods (WHO and FAO, 2006).
Home-Grown School Feeding	A school feeding model that is designed to provide children in schools with safe, diverse and nutritious food, sourced locally from smallholders.
Investment	The total budget allocated to school feeding by the government or WFP, or an estimation of that budget. In this publication, these are estimates based on secondary data and not on information from national balance sheets.
National school feeding programme	A programme managed by the government either alone or with the support of WFP or other development partners to provide food on a regular basis to schoolchildren.
Nutrition-sensitive Programme	Interventions addressing the basic and underlying determinants of malnutrition; namely, food security, caregiving, and access to health services and a safe and hygienic environment. Nutrition-sensitive programmes also address the enabling environment, through technical assistance to governments, including advising on policies in complementary sectors.
School Feeding	The provision of food to children or their households through school-based programmes. Such programmes can provide meals, snacks or conditional household transfers in the form of cash, vouchers or in-kind, take-home rations.
School Meals Coalition	An emerging initiative of governments and a wide range of partners to drive actions that can urgently re-establish, improve and scale up food and education systems, support pandemic recovery and drive actions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Social Protection	A set of policies and programmes aimed at preventing or protecting all people against poverty, vulnerability and social exclusion throughout their life-course, with particular emphasis on vulnerable groups.
School Health and Nutrition	Health and nutrition programming designed for school-age children, as well as outreach activities that expand the effect of programmes within communities and to children not in schools. The services provided through School Health and Nutrition go beyond feeding, and may include additional interventions such as deworming, vaccination, vision screening, nutrition education, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).

Methodology

Methodology and sources used for estimating children receiving school feeding and investment

A2.1 Sources

Similar to State of School Feeding Worldwide 2020and 2022, this database draws on a combination of primary and secondary sources for quantitative data about children receiving school feeding, coverage and investment. Each source was selected based on the following criteria:

Relevance: sources that contain standard indicators on school feeding.
Availability: sources in open and public access.
Timeliness: sources published recently. Primary data for the 2022 edition were mainly drawn from two main sources:

The USDA-sponsored GCNF Global School Feeding Survey, published in 2021 (125 countries) (Global Child Nutrition Foundation, 2022). The Global Survey of School Meal Programs © is the property of GCNF and is protected by copyright, all rights reserved. It may not be reproduced or distributed without prior written consent. Funding for the most recent survey in 2021 and 2019 is provided, in part, by USDA under agreement number FX18TA-10960G002.
WFP's 2019 Annual Country Reports, published in 2020 (72 countries) (WFP, 2020a).

When data were not available from the sources above, data were drawn from sources employed inState of School Feeding Worldwide 2020(WFP, 2020d). These secondary sources include reports, publications and case studies. As in 2020, when selecting secondary sources, the overarching principle was to use only sources published by oﬃcial institutions. Therefore, three categories of publications were used as secondary sources: oﬃcial reports published by governments; oﬃcial reports published by international organizations; and peer-reviewed academic papers.

The full list of secondary sources used for this publication are:

The World Bank's The State of Social Safety Nets 2018(World Bank, 2018) (90 countries).
The African Union'sSustainable School Feeding Report(African Union, 2018), (33 countries).
WFP's Smart School Meals – Nutrition-sensitive national programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean(WFP, 2017b), published in 2017 (16 countries).
TheGlobal School Feeding Sourcebook(Drake et al., 2016), jointly published by the World Bank, WFP and PCD/Imperial College in 2016 (14 countries).
Individual country case studies and government reports for the following nine countries:
- Japan (Ishida, 2018)
- United Kingdom (UK National Statistics/Department for Education, 2019)
- Spain (Muñoz et al., 2018)
- France (nationale, 2015)
- Brazil ((WFP, 2020d)
- India ((WFP, 2020d)
- China (School Feeding Worldwide 2020, Case Study 1.1 in (WFP, 2020d))
- Rwanda (Republic of Rwanda/Ministry of Education, 2018)
- Russia (Communication from the Social Industrial Foodservice Institute, 2020 in (WFP, 2020d).

Several countries appeared in more than one of these secondary sources. In this case, only one data point was used for each country based on the following criteria:

If more than one source cites data for the same country, the most recent data point was used, based on the reference year.
If more than one source of information is available for the same country and the same reference year, the most comprehensive source was used – for instance, one source may cover a particular programme while the other source covers all the existing programmes in the same country.

Finally, in 18 countries where reported data were unavailable, beneficiary numbers were estimated using available information from the World Bank and UNESCO based on the same methodology used in 2013.

As a result of this selection criteria, Table A2.1illustrates the list of data source used in this database.

Table A2. 1Sources used for school feeding data

Source	Symbol	Number of countries used in this report	Country names
African Union, Sustainable School Feeding in the African Union	AUSSF	2	Angola United Republic of Tanzania
USDA- sponsored, GCNF Global School Feeding Survey 2019	GCNF 2019	8	Colombia, Comoros, Egypt, Fiji Indonesia, Nauru, Republic of Moldova. Viet Nam
USDA- sponsored, GCNF Global School Feeding Survey 2021	GCNF 2021	125	Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Armenia, Australia Austria, Bahamas, Bangladesh Barbados, Belgium, Belize Benin, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil Brunei, Darussalam, Bulgaria Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon Central African Republic, Chad Chile, China, Congo, Croatia Cyprus, Czechia, Côte d'Ivoire Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, El Salvador Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland France, Gambia, Ghana Greece, Grenada, Guatemala Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana Haiti, Honduras, Hungary Iceland, India*, Iraq, Ireland Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Palau, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Spain, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts and Nevis, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Uruguay, Zambia, Zimbabwe, eSwatini
World Bank, State of Social Safety Nets 2018	SSSN	5	Costa Rica, Mauritius, Morocco State of Palestine, Turkey
State of School Feeding Worldwide 2013	SSFW	3	Canada, China Hong Kong SAR Iran (Islamic Republic of)
WFP, Smart School Meals 2017	SSM	5	Bolivia (Plurinational State of) Cuba Dominican Republic Nicaragua Paraguay
WFP, Annual Country Reports 2019	WFP ACR	6	Algeria Djibouti Jordan Lebanon Myanmar Yemen
Other sources: government reports, case studies and individual country publications	OS	4	Japan Russian Federation Rwanda United Kingdom
Estimations	Est.	18	Afghanistan Albania Bahrain Belarus Bermuda Dem. People's Republic of Korea Dominica Marshall Islands Pakistan Puerto Rico Qatar Saudi Arabia Seychelles Singapore Tonga Ukraine Uzbekistan Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)

*Data from India was collected by GCNF during its 2021 survey and do not match with data provided in the Mid-Day Programme page referring to 118 million schoolchildren fed in India (https://www.akshayapatra.org/our-reach). According to GCNF, data from India were gathered through the following sources: For the India survey, all the data were collated from themdm.nic.inwebsite (nowpmposhan.education.gov.in) between 22 February to 6 March 2022. The pdf of the PAB Appraisal Note for the year 2021-2022 for all states and Union territories was downloaded and the numbers were collated. Only for Telangana state was the PAB Appraisal Note in Microsoft PowerPoint. These are athttps://pmposhan.education.gov.in/#. The "Number of children who availed the MDM during the school year 2020-2021” is specified under the Basic Information section, point 2 (iii) of the PAB files. GCNF collated and tabulated student numbers (disaggregated by school level) from this file and got to the final estimate of 106 million. Possible explanations for the discrepancy in numbers are the following: the "NCLP", that is the "National" Child Labour Project", a project that includes vocational training centres that serve a mid-day meal was not included in the government count. Also, the pre-school numbers for South Asia/East Asia/Pacific do not include children served through India's large Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), a programme that provides nutritional and other health and developmental services for children under six years of age and their mothers. Similarly, the GCNF survey may not have captured other (day care or community-based) programmes benefiting pre-school children but not considered to be school-based feeding programmes.

A2.2 Limitations

While the data presented in this database is only based on reliable sources, it has some limitations. The multiplicity of sources translates in differences of methodology: some sources report all children receiving school feeding in a particular country, but for other countries, only primary schoolchildren are reported.

Another limitation is the quantity of indicators provided by each source: the number of children is provided in all sources, but coverage data, funding data and other indicators were only available for a more limited set of countries. The analytics presented in this database systematically specify the sample size available for each indicator.

Further, the data available do not allow us to accurately confirm how many meals per day or per week children received, not the exact type of meal (i.e. a snack or a proper meal).

The discrepancy in reference years is a third limitation of the data set presented in this database. While some sources were published less than a year before this report was published, such as the GCNF Global School Feeding Survey and WFP's Annual Country Reports, other sources are older and/or present data pertaining to earlier school years.

As forState of School Feeding Worldwide 2020(WFP, 2020d), in order to provide a comprehensive picture of school feeding programmes globally, this database combines country data spanning almost a decade. This approach has been used in similar reports, such as the World Bank's State of Social Safety Nets 2018 and provides a good level of confidence for a majority of countries and for cross-country analytics and trends. The main advantage of this approach is its comprehensiveness as it maximizes the number of countries for which a data point is available, but the potential lack of accuracy of some older data points remains an important limitation.

Finally, in addition to data spanning almost a decade, the reference year for the numerator and denominator to compute coverage sometimes does not match (i.e. data could be available for the number of children fed in 2021, but the most recent data on the number of children enrolled in primary school for that country could date back to 2017).

A2.3 Children receiving school feeding

The number of children receiving school feeding presented in this database represents the total number of children benefitting from school feeding in a given country.

While the majority of these children receiving school feeding are supported by a government-funded and government-led school feeding programme, some countries have opted for locally managed school feeding programmes and/or collect contributions from parents to finance their school feeding programmes. In keeping with the approach inState of School Feeding Worldwide 2020(WFP, 2020d), beneficiaries of school feeding should be understood as “children receiving meals, or another form of food, in schools” (not as “children benefitting from free and government-funded school meals”).

When more than one school feeding programme exists in a given country, the number presented in this database is the total number of individual beneficiaries, net of overlaps if any. This operation is generally made by the individual data providers listed inTable A2.1, and the net total corresponds to the number reported by each of these sources, but this was verified as part of the data consolidation process. As for the 2020 edition, even in this report three possible configurations were found, as described in Table A2.2 below.

In a limited number of countries, 2020 estimates needed to be updated in light of new data reported and published after the publication ofState of School Feeding Worldwide 2020. The only countries where data on existing policy on national school feeding had to be updated was for Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan, Uruguay, Trinidad and Tobago, whereState of School Feeding Worldwide 2020(WFP, 2020d) mistakenly reported there was an existing national school feeding policy.

Table A2.2Possible configurations of school feeding programmes for the purpose of calculating net total beneficiaries

Situation			Calculation of net total beneficiaries
1	The country has only one school feeding programme		The number of beneficiaries of this programme corresponds to the number of beneficiaries in this country
2	The country has two or more school feeding programmes	The programmes overlap: some (or all) children benefit from both programmes. (e.g. the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program in the USA).	The number of beneficiaries do not add up. Depending on the situation, the size of the larger programme may correspond to the net total.
3	The country has two or more school feeding programmes	The programmes do not overlap: each programme benefits a distinct group of beneficiaries. (e.g. the National School Feeding Program and the WFP School Feeding Program in Mali)	The number of beneficiaries add up: the net total corresponds to the sum of beneficiaries of the different programmes.

Box A2.1Income classification of countries

This database follows the classification of countries by income groups as defined inState of School Feeding Worldwide 2020(WFP, 2020d), which adopts the World Bank definition, updated every year. The version used in this database is the “2020 fiscal year” classification of countries, which is based on the 2020 gross national income (GNI) per capita (Atlas method) https://datatopics.worldbank.org/world-development-indicators/the-world-by-income-and-region.html, and calculated as follows:

Income category	GNI per capita thresholds
Low-income countries	US$ 1,034 or less
Lower middle-income countries	between US$ 1,035 and US$ 4,045
Upper middle-income countries	between US$ 4,046 and US$ 12,535
High-income countries	US$ 12,536 or more

The full list of countries included in each of these income groups is available on the World Bank's website https://datatopics.worldbank.org/world-development-indicators/the-world-by-income-and-region.html and reproduced in Annex II of the present State of School Feeding Worldwide 2022.

In addition to these four income groups, an additional aggregate comprised of the five emerging countries commonly referred to as BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is displayed as a separate entity in most analytics presented in this database. These five countries belong to two of the four income groups: India is classified a lower middle-income country and Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa are classified upper middle-income countries in the 2021 fiscal year. As a result, in analytics and figures presented in this database (such as most figures in Chapter 1), the five BRICS are displayed twice: once in their respective income group, and a second time as part of this specific aggregate.

As a result, averages and percentages applicable to lower middle-income countries (resp. upper middle-income countries) are applicable to the entire lower middle-income category, inclusive of India (resp. upper middle-income category, inclusive of Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa) as defined by the World Bank. In addition, averages and percentages applicable to the BRICS aggregate are applicable to the stand-alone group formed by these five countries. Double counting did not result from this approach – in subtotals and global totals, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa were each counted once.

PLEASE NOTE:According to the latest World Bank data ten countries changed income level in 2021:

Haiti: low to lower middle
Moldova: not included in our sample
Tajikistan: Low to lower middle
Belize: Upper middle to lower middle
Indonesia: Upper middle to lower middle
Iran: Upper middle to lower middle
Mauritius: not included in our sample
Panama: High to Upper middle
Romania: High to Upper middle
Samoa: not included in our sample

Of these ten countries, three are not included in our sample and one (Romania) is already listed in our database as Upper middle so no actual change.

A2.5 Estimations

Calculations for the global investment in school feeding are presented in Section 1.3 of the State of School Feeding Worldwide 2022 and reproduced below (Table A2.4). Investment is defined as the total budget allocated to school feeding, or an estimation of that budget. Information on country expenditure on school feeding is not available in all countries, but available data is presented in this database. Only countries with a school feeding programme were included in the investment estimation.

Table A2.4Four estimates of the total yearly investment in school meals

Source	Number of countries	Number of beneficiaries	Investment value	Estimated global investment (US$)
Actual reported cost only	100	314 million	Budget allocated	35 billion
Actual reported cost only	100	314 million	Average cost per income group	34 billion
Actual reported cost and estimations	176	418 million	Budget allocated for 100 countries which have data; average cost per income group for remaining 76 countries	49 billion
Actual reported cost and estimations	176	418 million	Average cost per income group	48 billion

The different methods used to estimate the global investment in school feeding reported in the above table are the following:

Estimated global investment: US$ 35 billion

Sample: 100 countries

The first approach, which resulted in a figure of US$ 35 billion, is based on national budgets as reported in the GCNF Global School Feeding Survey (100 countries), the report onSustainable School Feeding Across the African Union(African Union, 2018) (6 countries), theSmart School Mealsreport (WFP, 2017b) (7 countries), and theGlobal School Feeding Sourcebook(Drake et al., 2016) (2 countries).

According to this approach, the global investment M(1)is the sum of all reported national budgets (Gi) across these 100 countries for which data was available:

M(1)=i=180Gi

(2) Estimated global investment: US$ 34 billion

Sample: 100 countries

The second approach, which resulted in a figure of US$ 34 billion, is an alternative estimation for the same sample of countries as the first estimation. Instead of using reported budget figures, total investment M(2)was estimated as the sum of the average costACfrom income groupxmultiplied by the number of beneficiaries in countryiacross the 100 countries:

M(2)=x=14i=180(ACxBi)

Bi may have been reported in the survey or estimated using average coverage as described earlier. The income grouping used for average costs is the same as the one used in beneficiary and coverage calculations. Table A2.5 presents the average cost per income group as used for this calculation.

Table A2.5Average cost per income group used for estimating global investment

Income category	Average cost used for estimations
Low-income countries	US$ 41.83
Lower middle-income countries	US$ 42.06
Upper middle-income countries	US$ 112.04
High-income countries	US$ 328.99

Estimated global investment: US$ 48 billion

Sample: 176 countries

The third approach, which resulted in a figure of US$ 48 billion, was calculated using the two previously discussed methods, applied to a broader sample to include not only countries with reported cost data but also countries with no cost data, based on reported or estimated beneficiaries. To the US$ 35 billion figure estimated using approach (1), it adds an estimation using approach (2) for an additional 76 countries which are known to have a national school feeding programme, and for which no reported budget data was available. The number of beneficiaries, as reported in this database, was multiplied for each country by the average cost corresponding to the income group of that country. The resulting values were summed up across the set of 63 countries. The full calculation for approach 3 is described as follows:

M(3)=i=180Gi+x=14i=81154(ACxBi)

(4) Estimated global investment: US$ 48 billion

Sample: 176 countries

The fourth approach, which resulted in a figure of US$ 48 billion, was calculated using approach (2), applied to the full sample of countries where beneficiary data was available. As described above, the number of beneficiaries as reported in the database was multiplied by the average cost per income group of the country, and these values were summed up across the full set of 176 countries. This calculation can be summarized by the equation below:

M(4)=x=14i=1154(ACxBi)

Pages

About

About The Database

The Data and Monitoring Initiative, the fourth initiative under the School Meals Coalition, was established with the goal of improving the availability of quality data on national school meal programmes worldwide and institutionalizing current efforts.  Get in touch with the Initiative at: SMC.DataMonitioring@wfp.org

This database aims to enhance the availability and accessibility of high-quality data on national school meal programmes and complementary activities worldwide. This first iteration of what will be many iterations integrates existing data and resources sourced from the Global Child Nutrition Foundation survey 2021 and 2020, the State of School Feeding Worldwide 2022, 2020, and 2013, World Bank, African Union, School Meals Coalition, and partners (read more on data sources on the methodology section of the database). Subsequent iterations will build on this, and add new indicators, data, and evidence.

Managed by

Via C. G. Viola 68 Parco dei Medici
00148 Rome, Italy