On March 1st, African School Feeding Day is celebrated worldwide. This year’s theme is “A decade of food. Celebrating the past, ensuring a just future”, and the celebrations promoted by the African Union will take place from February 28 in Bangui, Central African Republic.
Since the beginning of its work in Brazil in 2011, the WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger has contributed, through international cooperation, to the implementation of school feeding policies and incentives for family farming in countries of the Global South, including African countries.
The commemorative date was conceived in 2015, at the suggestion of the Centre of Excellence’s director, Daniel Balaban, during an African Union study visit to Brazil, and adopted worldwide in 2016, when the Multidisciplinary Committee of African Experts on School Feeding was established, created to facilitate the implementation of this agenda.
Throughout its 13 years of operation, the Center of Excellence has promoted cooperation with more than 40 African countries, focusing on dialogue centered on school meals as a high-impact investment that strengthens food systems, guarantees children’s education and stimulates the economy through local agricultural production.
Around the world, the WFP has been supporting governments to build self-sufficient national school meals programs for over 60 years. Between 2020 and 2022, the number of children receiving school feeding programs worldwide grew from 388 million to 418 million. Of this number, children covered by WFP-supported programs increased from 91 million to 107 million.
Coalition
The School Meals Coalition is an initiative led by more than 100 governments, hosted by the WFP as its secretariat and supported by more than 140 partners. It promotes political commitment for countries to invest the necessary resources to create, strengthen and expand their national school meal programs.
Between September 18 and 19, 2025, Brazil will host the Global Ministerial Summit of the School Feeding Coalition, which will bring together strategic partners in Fortaleza (CE) to discuss the challenges in building national school feeding programs and share experiences in promoting policies that have a very significant social and economic return: every US$1 invested generates between US$7 and US$35 in economic benefits for the country.
School feeding programs play a long-term role in strengthening national stability and food security by providing a consistent, government-run service that families can trust.