Poor diets and malnutrition in school age children (SAC) in Ghana affect children’s school attendance, lower their academic achievement and cognitive levels (Parish and Gelli, 2015), besides causing stunted growth and wasting. School Feeding Programme (SFP) is a social protection safety net that improves the educational and health outcomes of school pupils. Ghana since 2005, initiated the school feeding program with an aim of using locally produced food to feed children thus reducing poverty and malnutrition by providing one hot meal to public and kindergarten children. In Ghana, 13% and 19% of preschool age children are underweight and stunted, respectively (Ghana Statistical Service). School meals intervention is a multi-sectoral approach that plays an important role in long-term human capital formation by improving young children’s nutrition conditions and learning performance. In many developing countries, however, sustainable school meal systems have not been introduced due to a lack of suitable food, appropriate school facilities, certified dieticians, and so on, which is a serious problem when people live under the current threat of food insecurity and food price spike, mainly caused by the Ukraine-Russia war, often exacerbated by local political instability, social fragility, and conflict and violence.
In the light of this, IFPRI and NMIMR organized an inception meeting of the project titled Protecting vulnerable children from exacerbated food insecurity crisis through Japan’s expertise on school lunch: Intervention in Ghana at the Erata Hotel on 28th February 2023. This event was attended by the Ministry for Gender, Children and Social protection, Ghana School Feeding Program Secretariat, Ghana Education Service, NDPC, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Embassy of Japan in Ghana, Academia from NMIMR, FAO. In a speech by the Deputy Minister for Gender, Children and Social protection Francisca Oteng Mensah, reiterated the aim of the government through the Ghana school feeding program to provide one hot meal to pupils in basic level and thus in its endeavors attaining to accomplish SDG Goal 1 and Goal 4. The project will collaboration with Japanese experts working on school lunch from the University of Niigata Prefecture and Japan Society of Nutrition and Dietetics, plan to introduce a sustainable school meals intervention aiming to improve and upscale the school lunch program in Ghana by redesigning menus and strengthening linkages to local agriculture based on Japan’s experience in the school lunch program. The intervention will improve child nutritional status, health and learning performance, thus increasing resilience of the school system, children, and local livelihoods to food insecurity crisis and COVID-19, which has been negatively impacting economic activities, household income, and nutrition intake of young children.
The pilot intervention has a timeframe of 1 year and targets 40 primary schools (40 communities) currently covered by the Ghana School Feeding Program (GSFP). The focus of the intervention will be on the preparation of nutritious foods with help of Japanese expertise on school lunch. The intervention will focus on the following activities drawing upon Japanese experiences: (i) human resource development for school lunch management, (ii) nutritionally well-balanced menu planning, (iii) creation of educational materials for nutrition education linked to school lunch, and (iv) system reform to create a revolving fund to streamline food suppliers (production) and caterers (school lunch) without the constraints imposed by the current government run payment system. All these combined are expected to improve the quality of school lunch.
The intervention directly draws upon Japan’s experience on school lunch menus in collaboration with academic researchers and practitioners in this field in Japan (University of Niigata Prefecture and Japan Society of Nutrition and Dietetics). For agriculture-nutrition linkages, we may collaborate with JICA’s IFNA and SHEP teams in West Africa. The project will partner with in-country organizations, including the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research and the government agencies, mainly the Ghana School Feeding Program (GSFP).