Advocacy & Policy briefs
This briefing paper explores how health taxes on tobacco, alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages can unlock additional domestic financing for school meals and school health programmes across Africa. It highlights the significant untapped fiscal potential of health taxes and demonstrates how redirecting a portion of these revenues could expand access to school meals, strengthen school health and nutrition programmes and support complementary investments such as water, sanitation and hygiene in schools. It presents evidence on financing gaps, outlines the triple benefits of health taxes for governments and includes country simulations from Burundi, Kenya and Uganda illustrating how tax reforms could mobilize resources to expand school meal coverage.