Pupils being given food under the programe
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2nd June, 2010
Ghana School Feeding Programme To Cover 1,040,000 Pupils
THE Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), is to be expanded to cover 1,040,000 pupils by the end of the year.
The programme currently covers 656,624 pupils. It was started in 2005 following the African Union-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AU-NEPAD) recommendation to use home-grown food.
The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Joseph Yieleh Chireh, disclosed this in Accra yesterday, at the opening of a five-day global child nutrition forum.
Organized by the Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF), with the support of the Partnership for Child Development, the forum seeks to strengthen the learning and knowledge exchange processes between Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) stakeholders including national governments, development partners, private sector, non-governmental organizations, and researchers.
The forum which is on the theme “ Multi Sectoral Approach: Linking School Health and Nutrition Feeding and Local Agriculture and Production”, also aims at validating of country specific HGSF frameworks, assessments, and draft country technical assistance plans of action.
GCNF is a USA based, international foundation dedicated to helping countries develop and operate sustainable school feeding programmes.
Established in 2006 as the international arm of the School Nutrition Association (SNA), GCNF provides technical assistance to support the development of community-based school feeding programmes that respond to nutritional needs of children, local cultures and community values.
Mr Yiekh-Chireh expressed the government’s commitment to successfully implement and sustain the school feeding programme and by extension to develop the Ghanaian child.
He said the a SFP was one of the “quick impact initiatives” to achieve the millennium development Goals, especially for rural areas facing the dual challenge of high chronic malnutrition and low agriculture productivity.
He commended the Dutch government for supporting the GSFP, which he said had chalked some successes, even though it still faced challenges.
He said the forum was timely, and its outcome would serve as an input for the second phase of the GSFP to strengthen the local procurement of foodstuff.
The President of GCNF, Gene White said appropriately designed school feeding programmes had been shown to increase access to education and learning, and improve children’s health and nutrition, especially when integrated into comprehensive school health and nutrition programmes.
She said school feeding programmes provided the opportunity to benefit local farmers and producers by generating a stable, structured and predictable demand for their products, thereby building the market and the enabling systems around it.
Sharing his experiences on the school feeding programme in Nigeria, the Governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola said Nigeria begun the implementation of the programme in 2006, and it had increased school enrolment.
He said a legal framework on school feeding had been drafted and would soon be implemented to ensure continuity of the programme, and pledged his government’s commitment to investing more in it to bring education to the door steps of the people.
The programme currently covers 656,624 pupils. It was started in 2005 following the African Union-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AU-NEPAD) recommendation to use home-grown food.
The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Joseph Yieleh Chireh, disclosed this in Accra yesterday, at the opening of a five-day global child nutrition forum.
Organized by the Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF), with the support of the Partnership for Child Development, the forum seeks to strengthen the learning and knowledge exchange processes between Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) stakeholders including national governments, development partners, private sector, non-governmental organizations, and researchers.
The forum which is on the theme “ Multi Sectoral Approach: Linking School Health and Nutrition Feeding and Local Agriculture and Production”, also aims at validating of country specific HGSF frameworks, assessments, and draft country technical assistance plans of action.
GCNF is a USA based, international foundation dedicated to helping countries develop and operate sustainable school feeding programmes.
Established in 2006 as the international arm of the School Nutrition Association (SNA), GCNF provides technical assistance to support the development of community-based school feeding programmes that respond to nutritional needs of children, local cultures and community values.
Mr Yiekh-Chireh expressed the government’s commitment to successfully implement and sustain the school feeding programme and by extension to develop the Ghanaian child.
He said the a SFP was one of the “quick impact initiatives” to achieve the millennium development Goals, especially for rural areas facing the dual challenge of high chronic malnutrition and low agriculture productivity.
He commended the Dutch government for supporting the GSFP, which he said had chalked some successes, even though it still faced challenges.
He said the forum was timely, and its outcome would serve as an input for the second phase of the GSFP to strengthen the local procurement of foodstuff.
The President of GCNF, Gene White said appropriately designed school feeding programmes had been shown to increase access to education and learning, and improve children’s health and nutrition, especially when integrated into comprehensive school health and nutrition programmes.
She said school feeding programmes provided the opportunity to benefit local farmers and producers by generating a stable, structured and predictable demand for their products, thereby building the market and the enabling systems around it.
Sharing his experiences on the school feeding programme in Nigeria, the Governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola said Nigeria begun the implementation of the programme in 2006, and it had increased school enrolment.
He said a legal framework on school feeding had been drafted and would soon be implemented to ensure continuity of the programme, and pledged his government’s commitment to investing more in it to bring education to the door steps of the people.
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