Attachments
Executive Summary
Over the past years, Latin America and the Caribbean has achieved impressive socio-economic development. More than 30 million people have overcome hunger in less than twenty years, and significant results have been achieved in terms of nutrition. In 1990, about 13.9 million children under five years of age suffered from stunting, decreasing to 6.1 million in 2015. Nevertheless, chronic malnutrition still affects 11.6 percent of children under five. On the other side of the malnutrition spectrum, childhood overweight and obesity are on the rise. In most Latin America and Caribbean countries, undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies coexist with rising levels of obesity, largely affecting school-age children and adolescents. On the education front, there has been significant progress in reducing the number of out-of-school children. However, according to UNESCO, about 3.6 million primary schoolchildren are still out of school in the region (2016).
As the context changes, the problems schoolchildren and adolescents face today are not the same as a few decades ago. In a region where universal access to primary education is nearly achieved, key priorities for governments are the expansion of education services to pre-primary and secondary school-age children and enhancing the quality of education for all children, ensuring that no one is left behind. In the face of the double burden of malnutrition, priorities for school age children appear to be promoting good nutrition and healthy eating habits, addressing and preventing micronutrient deficiencies and tackling the specific needs of adolescent girls and other vulnerable groups.
Nearly all countries in the region implement school meals programmes. Today, about 85 million schoolchildren in the region receive school meals every day, with an annual investment of approximately USD 4.3 billion, primarily coming from national budgets.
Governments prioritize school meals programmes more than ever before because, in addition to their contribution to education, school meals provide critical support to vulnerable and deprived families. Nutritionally balanced school meals, along with complementary nutrition education and health measures, can support child development and hunger reduction, with short- and long-term benefits. When linked to local food production, school meals programmes also have the potential to benefit local producers and economies while promoting long-term food security. Renewed attention has been recently given to the potential health and nutrition benefits of school meals. In the fight against hunger and malnutrition, “nutritionsensitive” actions will be critical components of any global strategy to eliminate malnutrition. There is wide consensus that the reach and focus of social protection programmes should be used to improve nutrition outcomes. School meals programmes have an important role to play. When appropriately designed, they have the potential to improve the diets and nutrition knowledge and practices of millions of schoolchildren and their communities.
The Latin America and the Caribbean region is a pioneer in this approach. Over the course of the years, school meals programmes have been evolving to adapt to the changing needs. Many countries are progressively embedding school meals programmes in their wider nutrition and food security policy frameworks. Governments increasingly seek to provide nutritious and healthy school meals and snacks adapted to diverse local cultures, as well as to link them to local food production and local economies. The attention to the quality and composition of school meals and the interest in the potential role they can play in fostering healthy diets within and beyond school grounds have also been triggered by the surging rates of overweight and obesity in the region. If some countries have developed promising and innovating strategies and approaches to enhance the nutritional impact of their school meals programmes, these have not been fully documented yet.
By systematizing and sharing knowledge on nutrition-sensitive approaches for school meals in the region, this study tries to analyse how national school meals programmes address hunger and malnutrition in all forms and accelerate progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger), shedding light on country practices that can serve to inform nutrition-sensitive school meals programmes in other countries. The information presented allows to identify implementation approaches and innovations that could be documented in greater detail in the future and possibly scaled-up and replicated.
The study was coordinated by the WFP Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, in partnership with the Latin American Network for School Meals (La-RAE). The analysis draws both on primary and secondary sources of information about school meals programmes in 16 Latin America and Caribbean countries. The core sample is composed of the 13 countries where WFP has presence, namely Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Peru. Additionally, it includes information about three larger and well-established programmes: Brazil, Chile and Mexico.
The study provides a comprehensive picture of regional characteristics and trends. Quantitative information was gathered through a questionnaire. Survey information was complemented by secondary data from government websites and other internet sources, published case studies, legal and policy documents, guidelines, reports, and country presentations delivered at regional seminars. Government counterparts, WFP country offices, experts and partners provided additional information and invaluable analytical insights.