In early 2020, school feeding programmes the world over-delivered more meals than ever before, reaching 388 million children. This historic progress came to a sudden halt when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and forced many countries to close their schools. Millions of schoolchildren were left without access to the one meal a day they could rely on.

Schoolchildren in South Sudan have had their education disrupted as well. Since the height of the COVID-19 crisis, more than two million children in the world’s youngest nation have been out of school, missing out on nutritious meals important for their development and future.

Investing in the nation’s future

At WFP, we believe that school meals are more than a plate of food. When done right, school meals programmes can support education and even the economy as they support local agriculture, transform the country’s food systems, make communities more resilient and promote gender equality.

Because children are the fundamental building block for the future of any nation, enabling their growth and capacity maximizes their chance of maturing into productive, civically active, and responsible members of society. Investing in their education by ensuring their steady enrollment in school and facilitating their learning in the classroom constitutes the very foundation for peace and security, as well as economic potential.

On World Children’s Day, WFP joins our partners to affirm our commitment to the children of South Sudan, who will become the leaders, innovators, thinkers, agents of peace and healers of tomorrow. In 2022, WFP’s school meals programme will scale up to benefit 571,000 schoolchildren in more than 1,100 schools across South Sudan. A daily meal of sorghum or maize and beans freshly prepared at school helps to keep children in school and allows them to focus their attention on their learning.

Ten-year-old Aluel Deng, a girl as young as her newly founded nation, knows this first-hand. She dreams of finishing her education and growing up to become a doctor so she can help heal the sick in her community. When a WFP team visited her and her classmates in Aweil Town, she explained how the daily meal makes a difference for her:

“The meal helps me to feel less hungry and I can learn better in class and play with my friends after school,” she said. 

In South Sudan, where more than 70 per cent of the population are food insecure, WFP’s school meals incentivize parents to send their children to school and keep them there. We also work with UNICEF to build the capacity of teachers and encourage community and parental investment and commitment to children’s education. UNICEF supports the building of school infrastructures such as classrooms, latrines and boreholes, helping facilitate children’s learning experience. WFP builds kitchens and food storage areas on school premises to provide a safe space for keeping and cooking food.

School meals as a social safety net

If school meals feed peace and hope in South Sudan’s young children, they also offer their families a community-level social safety net. When facing economic hardship, millions of families may find preparing a meal for their child a significant challenge. Each meal given at school is one meal less taken at home, relieving part of a family’s food burden.

Further, in areas where feasible, WFP supports the creation of vegetable gardens in schools to help diversify the diets of their schoolchildren and teach them about the importance of good nutrition. This resilience-building initiative brings additional benefits through the school meals programme by supporting smallholder farmers and local markets at the community level. This year alone, school gardens have been established in 280 schools providing both practical learning opportunities and a complimentary food source.

Schools and education are the foundation from which South Sudan can build a cohesive social fabric and reduce poverty. Classrooms offer children a safe and inclusive environment while playgrounds are where life-long friendships are formed. With this view in mind, WFP is scaling up its school meals programme in hard-to-reach areas and refugee communities in South Sudan.

The time is now

Nearly every family in South Sudan and the world has been touched by school closure. The time to bring back more children to the classroom is now. School meals programmes are among the most effective ways to attract children to, and keep them in, school. With the launch of the School Meals Coalition last week, momentum is building around the world in both developed and developing countries to improve children’s access to healthy, nutritious school meals. In South Sudan, let’s work together to help ensure that every child in South Sudan can enjoy a healthy, nutritious school meal.

–By Matthew Hollingworth-Country Director of the World Food Programme in South Sudan