More than 1.7 Million Children Benefitting from Emergency School Feeding Program
Addis Ababa March 11, 2017 Emergency school feeding program has been underway in drought-affected areas of the country to curb drought-induced school dropouts, Education Minister Dr. Shiferaw Teklemariam disclosed.
In an exclusive interview with ENA, Dr. Shiferaw said the government has allocated close to 200 million Birr for emergency school feeding program.
“A total of over 1.7 million children are now covered under the emergency school feeding program”
Of the total 2.2 million children who require school feeding, close to 1.2 million are being provided with food at schools by the government and additional half a million by partners.
By alleviating short-term hunger at school, the emergency school feeding program helps to reduce the number and frequency of school dropouts and to prevent child trafficking, Dr. Shiferaw said.
“Although we are now massively engaged in responses triggered by the El Niño effect, there are a number of regular school feeding programs going on over the nation.”
Dr. Shiferaw pointed out that the need to identify and prioritize the response in consultation with stakeholders is of a great concern.
“What we are doing at the ministry, in collaboration with a number of other stakeholders like Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Electricity is to combine all efforts together because ones we are in the school health, water and sanitation as well as hygiene is an issue.”
According to Humanitarian Requirements Document (HRD), an estimated 30.5 million USD is required to address the emergency school feeding program.
Dr. Shiferaw, who revealed that the government has so far allocated 9 million USD, urged the international community and development partners to contribute their share to the effort of responding to the food needs of school children as the government would not be able to shoulder the burden single handedly.
The minister stated that the government was able to feed about 2.9 million children with a budget close to 600 million Birr last academic year.
More than 40 farmers’ cooperative unions were involved and benefited from providing the required food supplies for the emergency school feeding program.