At the beginning of 2020, national school feeding programs were delivering school meals to more children than at any time in human history, making school feeding the most extensive social safety net and the largest multidisciplinary and inter-sectoral program in the world. In fact, more than 65 million children received school meals across Africa in 2019, a massive increase from 38.4 million in 2013, according to the latest edition of the African Union Biannual Report on School Feeding in Africa. This success followed more than a decade of sustained growth in such programs, which had begun in Africa in 2003 with the adoption by New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) of the home-grown school feeding (HGSF) approach of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) and the Malabo Commitments.

The HGSF approach was selected by these agencies because it benefits both children and the farming community: It sources food locally which, with appropriate program design and implementation, can help ensure that food is fresh, nutritious, and culturally appropriate, while at the same providing a stable and predictable market for local small farmers, the majority of whom are women. However, by mid-2020, when schools closed worldwide to limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 388 million children reached by national programs had fallen by 370 million, such that nearly all the children who had previously benefited from these programs were suddenly deprived of, what had been for many of the most needy children, their one guaranteed nutritious daily meal.