Publications and resources

The National School Feeding Programme (NSFP) in Lesotho was initiated in 1961 in ten primary schools in Maseru District with support from Save the Children. It was scaled up nationally in 1965 with assistance from the World Food Programme (WFP), eventually covering all public primary schools. Following the introduction of Free Primary Education (FPE) in 2000, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) committed to providing daily meals to primary school pupils to improve their concentration and learning outcomes, contributing to a 12.6% increase in primary school enrolment. In 2015, the Government of Lesotho, with WFP support, adopted a National School Feeding Policy aimed at ensuring sustainable, nutritious meals for all primary school learners every school day, sourced from local producers and fully implemented by national actors. While the programme is coordinated and funded centrally by the MOET, District School Feeding Committees support community participation at the school level.

The objectives of this case study include presenting an introduction to the country profile, outlining the design and implementation of school feeding programmes, describing their monitoring and evaluation processes, and highlighting lessons learned, best practices, and challenges. 

This Global Education Monitoring Report highlights how equitable access to education depends on strong, long‑term policies that address both learning and the wider factors shaping children’s ability to attend school. 

School meal programmes are a proven, scalable solution at the heart of this progress, boosting enrolment, reducing gender and poverty‑related disparities, and supporting children’s health and learning outcomes. By linking education with social protection and nutrition, school meals exemplify the coherent, child‑focused policies that help countries sustain change over decades, ensuring every learner can participate, thrive, and build a more resilient future.

This brief highlights the role of school meals in emergencies in supporting learning, reducing dropout risks, strengthening local systems, and contributing to long‑term recovery and social cohesion in fragile settings.

This advocacy brief highlights the powerful role that school meals play at the intersection of nutritious meals, clean water and hygiene for children and their communities. Countries continue working to secure sustainable financing, improve infrastructure and better integrate education, health, nutrition, agriculture and water policies.

This study looks at the cost-benefit analysis of Niger’s National School Feeding Program (PAS), which provides nutritious meals to primary school children. It quantifies the programme’s multisectoral benefits, including improved educational outcomes, better health and nutrition, and reduced rates of anaemia. The programme also generates substantial social protection benefits by lowering household food expenditures and stimulates local economic development through the procurement of locally sourced food. 

Overall, the analysis demonstrates that the programme delivers a strong return on investment, generating significant benefits across the education, health, nutrition, social protection, and agricultural sectors.

This school meals case study forms part of a collection led by the Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition’s "Good Examples" Community of Practice. The School Meals Case Study of Ghana serves to document how the national school meals programme is organized, funded, and monitored throughout the country. The objectives of this case study include presenting an introduction to the country profile, outlining the design and implementation of school feeding programmes, describing their monitoring and evaluation processes, and highlighting lessons learned, best practices, and challenges. 

Addo, P; Kushitor, K; Mawuli, K M; Gyinde, A; Ester Gaba, D; and Zotor, B F (2025) School Meals Case Study: Ghana. Working Paper. London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London. DOI: 10.17037/PUBS.04673395

Cambodia has implemented school feeding activities since the late 1990s, with staggered adoption across ten provinces and with varying components, including on-site meal provision and takehome rations ; and a home-grown school feeding (HGSF) program has been piloted since 2014.

Schools can be an effective platform for delivering key interventions. For example, school feeding programs (SFP) represent a school-based intervention that can efficiently target vulnerable populations, including children from rural areas, poorly performing schools, and regions presenting with high food insecurity.

This study looks at School meal provision in Cambodia and how it can generate important multisectoral benefits, along the sectors of education, health and nutrition, social protection, and local agriculture economy. While important variations in the extent of benefits were estimated across provinces, the school feeding program remains cost-beneficial in all regions of Cambodia. 

The school meals programme in Milan aims to provide each school day an educational meal (good, healthy and sustainable) to all children in the public schools in order to develop good food habits and sustainable lifestyles for their lifespan. Via the design of sustainable and healthy meals, the city strives to ensure concrete transformative changes towards a more sustainable urban food system. The goal of the service is to satisfy the needs of all its users, as well as to promote the food policy guidelines related to healthy and sustainable diets, among other stakeholders such as families, teachers, suppliers, and the broader Milanese community. Integral to this vision are food and nutritional security, food quality, the environment, health and safety in the workplace, transparency, and sustainability.

The objectives of this case study include presenting an introduction to the city profile, outlining the design and implementation of school feeding programmes, describing their monitoring and evaluation processes, and highlighting lessons learned, best practices, and challenges.