Following technical and planning consultations, the Brazil-Guinea-Bissau-WFP-Centre of Excellence Cooperation Project was signed by the partners on 12 April. The objective of the project is to strengthen Guinea-Bissau’s National School Canteens Programme and to enable greater participation of local farmers as suppliers to the programme.
Technical cooperation among Brazil, Guinea-Bissau and WFP/Centre of Excellence is going to last for two years, and the focus will be on institutional strengthening of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEES) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Livestock (MAFP). Trainings will be provided to technical staff from the two governing bodies and partners will provide technical assistance in the development of sectoral strategy documents to expand local food purchases and improve the school feeding programme.
The National School Canteen Programme aims to promote food and nutritional security in Guinea-Bissau. A mission of the Brazilian government and the Centre for Excellence against Hunger was held on 9-13 April. In addition to the signing of the project, the mission aimed to review and validate the project and establish the first Project Monitoring Committee.
The project is resuming the technical support provided by Brazil in the area of school feeding and interrupted in 2012. The formulation of the project was made through a participatory process, which began with a demand from the Minister of National Education. Two missions were carried out, one for prospecting in 2016, coordinated by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency and integrated by the National Fund for the Development of Education and the WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger. The second took place in 2017 and served to validate the objectives, structure and logical matrix of the cooperation project that is now starting.