Kenya Commended on School Meals Milestones
The King of Lesotho, King Letsie III, Commended the Government of Kenya under President William Ruto for its commitment in the school meals program.
Speaking in Nairobi after a benchmarking tour in Ruiru, Kiambu County, the King and his entourage accompanied by the President of the African Development Bank Dr. Akinwumi Adesina and the Ministry of Education officials led by Director Stephen Barongo were marveled by accomplishments in the school feeding program in the country.
"African governments can integrate school feeding in their national fabric to nurture minds for a better future of our continent" said the King adding that African leaders should take the lead in championing school feeding and end school age hunger.
King Letsie III took cognisant of model young philanthropists like Kenyan Wawira Njiru, the founder of food for education who was recognised as the United Nations Person of the year in October 2021 for taking lead in start-ups in nutrition for others to replicate scaling up impactful school feeding programs.
Dr Akinwumi Adesina, The President African Development Bank decried unhealthy stunted growth of most African children occasioned by malnutrition saying, it was a leadership issue and governments should invest in education hence a sustainable future for the African continent and beyond.
Dr. Adesina called for mainstreaming and advocacy for all children to eat well since an empty stomach can interfere with the cognitive ability of the brain to grasp educational content among other concepts.
Being at the centre of our sustainable economic growth, the ADB President was conferred the Chief of the Order of the Golden Heart (C.G.H), Kenya’s highest national distinction and honour by President Dr. William Ruto recently for the Banks role in Kenya's sustainable economic growth.
During the Second Global Ministerial Meeting held in Nairobi in October 2024, His Excellency President Dr. William Ruto committed to working with President Macron of France and President Lula of Brazil among others, to champion school meals on the global stage, particularly in the context of the G20-led Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty under Brazil’s leadership.
The National School Meals Coalition Launched in October is now operational and has gone ahead and formed its own technical working groups or initiatives aligning to the Global School Meals Initiative.
Director Barongo in his remarks on school meals said children and adolescents spend most of their time, about 75%, in a school environment throughout the year where they consume more than half of their daily meals, grow up, and mature to become adults.
The government recognized this fact and introduced the School Meals Programme to provide complementary mid-day meals to school children with the aim to increase school enrollment, and improve retention and performance.
This was aimed at making it more sustainable and nationally owned Home-Grown School Meals Programme by locally sourcing nutritious and culturally acceptable foods for supply to schools.
The numbers for school enrollment, retention, completion, learning outcomes, nutrition and general wellbeing has jumped from 240,000 to 2.6 million leaners over the years.
The Programme currently covers learners in all the 11 arid counties, selected schools in the 15 semi -arid counties, urban informal settlements, Special Needs Schools and the camp- based Refugee schools.
The School Meals Programmes are an indispensable safety net for nourishing school going children, creating jobs, fostering green economic growth, and long-term development of the local communities.
The government is committed and charting the path towards universal coverage by scaling up provision of healthy, nutritious and climate-friendly meals from the current reach of 2.6 million to 10 million children by 2030.
Toward this commitment, an operational plan for the scale-up has been developed with technical assistance from the Rockefeller foundation. To effectively implement its scale-up plan.
The government is transitioning to a Home -Grown School Meals Program leveraging an aggregator model, currently piloted in two counties, prioritizing food sourced by local smallholder farmers.
As climate change continues to adversely affect our country and the well-being of our communities, we are now taking the lead on promoting transformative change of keeping and bringing more children into schools through school meals, boosting economic opportunities and incomes for communities through home-grown school feeding. Additionally, tackling the climate crisis through the adoption of clean cooking in schools, shifting away from carbon-heavy imports, and prioritizing the uptake of drought-tolerant crops and vegetables for home-grown production of school meals.