School feeding is the world's most extensive safety net programme, with nearly one in two primary school children receiving a meal every school day. Over the last decade the coverage has doubled in Africa to 65.9 million school children, with the fastest rate of growth in Nigeria, up from 1.05 million in 2017 to around 10 million in 2022. Nigeria implements one of the largest school meal programmes in Africa, designed around four key principles: transparency, equity, efficiency, and sustainability. Besides providing nutritious daily school meals, the programme has created 106,000 jobs, mainly for women, and provides reliable output support for over 200,000 local farmers. It also supports the local food economy across sectors such as poultry and aquaculture by sourcing over 7.6 million eggs and 98 metric tonnes of fish products weekly. This sourcebook provides critical insights into the development, governance, and implementation of this large and complex safety net programme, led by multiple state governments and the federal government. The book, launched on 1 March 2023 at the African Union Summit on the African Day of School Feeding in Addis Ababa, is essential reading for researchers, implementing agencies, and policymakers. The editors of this book were privileged to be part of the growth of this exceptional national programme.
Abimbola Adesanmi is an experienced food security and nutrition specialist with over 15years' experience in nutrition, food security, school and public health nutrition programming that includes driving defined development through programmes.
As the Country Director, Partnership for Child Development in Nigeria, she was seconded to serve the Government of Nigeria as Program Manager of National Homegrown School Feeding Program and then the Senior Special Assistant to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on Home Grown School feeding domiciled in the Office of the Vice President (VP), in that role she led the implementation of the National Home-Grown School Feeding (HGSF) Programme one of the largest school feeding programs in Africa and was responsible for development of frameworks and structures, that align with global HGSF standards, strengthening the school health, nutrition, and agricultural value chains. She provided guidance, and brought consistency between the different levels of government, ministries, and development partners.
Samrat Singh is based in the School of Public Health, Imperial College London. He is the head of programmes in Partnership for Child Development. He is also a consultant with UN World Food Programme and World Bank. Samrat leads work on nutrition, food policy and agriculture, primarily in the context of food systems and public health. He focusses on operational research and technical assistance projects. Samrat has undertaken projects in over 20 countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, with national and local governments and has contributed to the development of national policies and systems. He has contributed to many publications including World Bank's Disease Control Priorities and Africa Agriculture Status reports. Samrat hold degrees in law, development studies, public health and environmental sciences.
Donald Bundy is Professor of Epidemiology and Development at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He has worked for more than 30 years on the role of school health and nutrition programmes in the development of school-age children and adolescents, especially in low-income countries. He is the Director of the Global Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition, and advisor to the World Food Programme in Rome, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation in London, the World Bank in Washington DC, and several national governments.
Lesley Drake is one of the world's leading experts on school health and nutrition committed to child development issues in low and middle-income countries. She and her team focus on translating quality research into evidence-based scalable and sustainable solutions. Her policy work has influenced both UN strategy and government plans and is grounded in strong scientific and practical experience. She was a key member of the UN joint taskforce to develop an action framework that laid out the principles of good practice for effective policy and programming: focussing resources on effective school health (FRESH). This framework now provides the basis for many school health programs today. she has worked with over 50 countries on this issue.
