- Commitments present an opportunity to fortify a collaborative, multi-sectoral approach with in-country partners, including UN agencies, NGOs, academia, private sector, and other stakeholders.
- Commitments inform the State of School Feeding Worldwide report that highlights country progress. It offers insights into effective school meal programmes, utilizing the best available data on coverage, implementation practices, and costs worldwide.
National commitments
Why are national commitments important?
What types of commitments can countries make?
National commitments can be in the following six categories:
Examples of commitments could include:
- Increasing the coverage of national school meals programmes by a specific number of children, in a specific timeframe. Example: Libya will increase coverage from 50,000 to 2,100,000 by 2026, with the aim to reach universal coverage by 2030. Read the commitment here.
- Developing/ Revisiting national policies or law on school meals, to improve the quality of programmes and meals, and make them more nutritious and safer. Example: Sri Lanka will develop and implement a national school health policy by 2024. They will also implement a digitalization strategy and tool to monitor the national policy at all levels by 2026. Read the commitment here.
- Establishing a budget line or increasing budgetary allocation to finance school meals programmes. Example: Bangladesh will increase the annual budget for school meals by USD 456 million to cover the national programme for November 2023 – October 2026. Read the commitment here.
- Leading or participating in any of the Coalition’s initiatives or supporting a particular region or a particular country or group of countries. Example: Rwanda committed to support and build connections between national academic institutions and the school feeding research consortium, government and other relevant initiatives related to school feeding research and learning. Read the commitment here.
From Commitment to Impact
National progress reports
National progress reports bring together voluntary reviews from member states of the School Meals Coalition. The information was shared directly by governments between May and August 2025, and highlights progress in areas such as policy, financing, institutional frameworks, programme design and coverage, evidence generation, advocacy and partnerships.
This collection is more than a record of achievements. It is an invitation to keep building momentum, to learn from one another and to continue working together to ensure every child has the chance to thrive.
Explore commitments
- Member countries
- Members with National Commitment
- Members with National Progress Report
Benefits for countries of joining the Coalition
Be part of a global network
Provides governments with a global network of support to strengthen their national school meal programmes.
Accelerate progress
Challenges countries to accelerate their progress in securing the health and nutrition of their school children.
Create national dialogues
Encourages national dialogues, setting concrete targets and defining a roadmap to achieve them.
Scaling up progress
Provides support to countries through initiatives and focuses on overcoming identified bottlenecks and boosting actions that hold great potential for scaling progress.
Demonstrate leadership
Provides governments a global platform to position themselves as champions and leaders for school meals, highlighting their commitments and successes.