Attachments
Highlights
- The Ministry of Education and WFP have handed over seven school kitchens under the SN5S project, implemented in three municipalities, to support the school feeding programme.
- WFP supported the Timor-Leste Government in the N4G Summit discussions, advancing global nutrition efforts, strengthening partnerships, and enhancing social protection and health systems integration.
Operational Updates
Nutrition and Food Security
- The Ministry of Education, in collaboration with WFP, has handed over seven new school kitchens to support the school feeding programme, with a remaining set of three kitchens to be constructed for handover this year. These kitchens are part of the Say No to 5S (which stands for ‘starvation, soil-transmitted helminthiasis, skin diseases, smoking, and sugar/alcoholic drinks) (SN5S) project, co-implemented by WFP and the World Health Organization in three municipalities: Baucau, Bobonaro, and Manufahi, and funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).
The project aims to improve the school cooking environment to provide safe, healthy, and nutritious meals for students, carry out social and behaviour change communication on better health and nutrition to students and the public, while also providing training to help strengthen the Ministry and local government. The SN5S project benefits 400 schools, reaching nearly 70,000 students through improved school meals, cooking equipment, and utensils.
Social Protection
- In March, the Asian Development Bank and WFP signed a US$1.55 million agreement to support a three-year pilot project led by the Ministry of Social Solidarity and Inclusion (MSSI). The project aims to develop a nutrition-sensitive and shock-responsive social protection programme. Key activities include developing a Poverty and Vulnerability Framework, undertaking data collection, designing an integrated social registry, and establishing guidelines for the Bolsa da Mãe Health Nutrition Mother and Child pilot programme.
- The President of Timor-Leste, Jose Ramos-Horta, with support from WFP, launched the latest edition of Policy in Focus, a magazine dedicated to analysing and evaluating policy models. This issue, presented to government institutions, UN agencies, and development partners, includes a foreword by President RamosHorta, who serves as Co-Chair of the Global Taskforce on Social Protection for Nutrition, a platform that fosters collaboration and knowledge exchange to support fragile and least-developed countries. Access it here.
- A scoping mission took place from 3 to 18 March, with experts from Pakistan’s Benazir Income Support Programme to lay the groundwork for the nutrition sensitive social protection pilot project. The mission focused on stakeholder mapping, capacity assessment, IT infrastructure review, risk mitigation, monitoring & evaluation frameworks, and feasibility analysis. It also aimed to foster technical collaboration between the governments of Timor-Leste and Pakistan on nutrition-sensitive social protection. Meetings were held with government agencies, UN partners, and others to exchange expertise on strengthening social protection systems. The mission also included field visits to three municipalities to assess local implementation needs. This mission will help design inclusive social protection systems in Timor-Leste, within the South-South Cooperation and g7+ and fragile country contexts.
- With the support of WFP, Timor-Leste played a key role in the 2025 Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit in Paris, reinforcing global efforts to combat malnutrition through social protection and health systems. As co-chair of the Global Task Force on Social Protection for Nutrition (GTF) alongside Chile, Vice Prime Minister Mariano Assanami Sabino represented TimorLeste in the opening plenary and at a thematic session with leaders from Ethiopia, Laos, and Egypt, where discussions focused on governance, investment, and programme expansion. Timor-Leste’s commitment was further strengthened through strategic bilateral meetings with France, as a donor to the GTF and contributor to Timor-Leste’s nutrition-sensitive social protection project. The Vice Prime-Minister also met with Japan, as an opportunity to advocate for and highlight linkages between the GTF and Japan’s development support priorities. The Summit built momentum for the Second World Summit for Social Development in November 2025.