Already, African countries are making specific commitments to strengthen their HGSF programs as part of the School Meals Coalition:

President Patrice Talon of Benin has just announced a national budget commitment of $270 million dollars over the next five years to scale up Benin’s national program.

President Macky Sall of Senegal—the newly appointed chairperson of the African Union—was the first president to personally sign the declaration of commitment of the coalition and has increased his country’s budget for school feeding in 2022.

The African Union, and in particular the AU Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), has spearheaded the concept of HGSF, recognizing that linking local farmers and communities with schools is an economically viable and potentially nutrition-friendly approach to strengthen the agriculture sector in Africa. The African Union is publishing their updated guidelines on HGSF on March 1 in honor of Africa Day of School Feeding.

Importantly, the African Union has designated 2022 the “Year of Nutrition,” with a view toward strengthening agricultural food systems to accelerate human, social, and economic capital development, and to accelerate the achievement of the Malabo targets by 2025, the Decade of Action on Nutrition by 2025, and the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. To make sure these programs are properly monitored and evaluated, the 2021 data from the first AU regional report on HGSF will serve to kick-start the School Meals Coalition Data and Monitoring Initiative, the latest product of the Coalition and the world’s first systematic school health and nutrition database.

Arguably, these collective actions to advance home-grown school feeding are the largest programmatic response to the pandemic in Africa, outside of the vaccination efforts. They have sprung out of the African Union’s commitment to the School Meals Coalition and signal the region’s collective support for the development of the next generation. The AU is now part of a Data and Monitoring Initiative of the School Meals Coalition, led by the World Food Program, that will serve to track progress across the continent as governments build back from the pandemic. More than 60 stakeholders—including U.N. agencies, development partners and non-state actors—have committed to support these government-led efforts. It is vital that this support materializes, and the children of Africa have a real chance to recover and catch up, and do not become long-term victims of the COVID-19 pandemic.