Salute to partnerships for school meal programs

The largest locally-led and independently run school feeding program in Africa, Food for Education (F4E) was in the news this week after their founder, Ms. Wawira Njiru, received the Social Innovator Award by the Skoll Foundation in Oxford, England. The award acknowledges the outstanding impact of F4E's blueprint model and efforts to mainstream school feeding programs ensuring that no child has to learn on an empty stomach.

F4E designs and operates a scalable system to feed children at schools and invest in local farmers and parents in the process. Developed in Kenya, the F4E model uses centralized kitchens, technology, and smart supply chains to deliver hot, nutritious, and affordable meals to nearly 300,000 school children daily.

The significance of these programs cannot be overstated. Just this week, in Rwanda, school feeding programs were among key issues raised by MP’s as they discussed education quality. Meanwhile in Uganda, opposition asked the government to implement a school feeding program in all schools to improve the quality of education for learners.

In Kenya, the national school meal program set up in 2009 serves more than 1.5 million children in rural drought-affected counties and in 2023, F4E partnered with Nairobi City county to prepare and distribute meals to schoolchildren through a program called Dishi na County. Through this partnership in Nairobi County, F4E have delivered over 12 million meals.

There’s a growing need for more innovative solutions using localized approaches that improve the quality of learning for children. It is encouraging to see the great strides F4E has been able to make since 2012. This is an area where further collaboration between the public and private sectors can contribute greatly to the entire continent's development.