strengthening school feeding programmes in the caribbean

BRAZIL-FAO TECHNICAL COOPERATION

STRENGTHENING SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAMMES

IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

School feeding programmes –

progress and challenges in the

achievement of SDG and CELAC

goals : the Caribbean region

March 22nd, 2017

Fransen Jean, Food Security Officer

Table of Content

– Why: Caribbean: FNS context and importance of School feeding

– How is it perceived: School feeding programs in the Caribbean

– What is being done: Ongoing progress and challenges

– What next: Vision and the way forward

1. Caribbean: FNS context and importance of School

feeding

• A coverage of 14 countries: High or upper middle income countries ( with the

exception of Haiti and Guyana classified as low and low-middle income

• Different levels of Undernourishment and relatively low progress compare to

other regions:– Historically low (countries had less than 20% of their population undernourished in

1990), with the exception of Haiti (61.1 %), Guyana (22.8%) and St. Vincent and the

Grenadines (20.7%). Countries like Bahamas, Barbados and Belize have maintained a

percentage below 10%

– Yet, some countries have shown sign of increase in the terms of undernourishment

1990-92 2000-02 2005-07 2009-11 2011-16

Bahamas 9.5 6 8 7.5 5.6

Barbados <5.0 5.2 6.7 <5.0 <5.0

Grenada 17.5 31 26.6 23.1 18.7

Haiti 61.1 55.2 57.1 50.6 53.4

St. Lucia 12.8 11.8 11.3 12.8 12.2

St. V&G 20.7 16.8 9.2 6.8 6.2

Belize 9.7 5.8 <5.0 5.7 6.2

Guyana 22.8 9.7 10.4 11.9 10.6


feeding

• Heavy reliance on a tourism/service (banks) economy, which is slowly showing

sign of shrinking --- the economy of Belize for instance would officially be in

recession…

• Such trends of downscale of the economy are visible in several indicators such

as:


feeding

• Yet, still not much progress to diversify the economy to create more

employment, income from traditional sector such as the agriculture:


feeding

• Ending up, with a culture of poor heating habits being reflected in

indicators such as obesity, diabetes and heart diseases:


feeding

• Under this context, School Feeding is being seen as a driver to :– Promote healthy eating habit and nutritional education starting at a

very early age, showing concrete examples

– Expose young children as a perfect target to start igniting the love for

farming and entrepreneurship in the agriculture and related

industries, through school gardens

– Promote Domestic food system, promoting the consumption of local

products and creating market for small and new farmers (youth)

– Propose concrete elements for dialogues and discussions around food

and nutrition security, bringing actors from different institutions and

sectors = governance/inter-sectorial & inter-insititutional

coordination

2. School feeding programs in the Caribbean

• Not new in the Caribbean… first school feeding programs in some Caribbean countries date back before 90s. Jamaica: 1926 ----Belize (5 years)

• Yet, there has been considerable evolution in terms of the vision and needs to strengthen these programs, bringing new experiences of other countries such as Brazil

• As such, recent policies in the region (the Caribbean Regional Food and Nutrition Security Policy (RFNSP) and an Action plan (RFNSAP) (2012-2026) call upon member states to implement a set of actions that include: – Control the identified nutrition conditions and influence food tastes and preferences starting

in early childhood in the education sector at Early Childhood Centers and primary and secondary schools

• Countries such as Haiti, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines ---- specific School feeding policy

2. School feeding programs in the Caribbean

• The concept and management of SFPs differ among countries: – centralized, decentralized,

– only lunch, breakfast and lunch----

– partially subsidized, wholly government-funded,

– leadership from different ministries and different type of coordination levels, etc

Countries Concept and management

Belice• Ministry of Education• Government funded• Coverage:1200 children

Grenada• Ministry of Education• Wholly government-funded• National coverage: public primary schools

Jamaica• Ministry of Education Welfare Programme responsible• Wholly government-funded• National coverage: Children in primary/junior high and in some high schools

Saint Lucia• Ministry of Education/ Human Resource Development and Labour responsible• Wholly government-funded• National coverage: primary schools (45 % of student population)

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

• Ministry of Health and Education.• Wholly government-funded• National coverage: public primary schools.

3. Ongoing progress and challenges, a new model

emerging in the Caribbean

• Initiated in 2015 with St. Lucia --- today a total of 9 countries (Belize,

Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the grenadines +

Dominica, Bahamas, Guyana and Suriname) have expressed interest

• Suriname being the last one to express formal request in 2017

• Pilots in 5 countries (Belize,

Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia

and St. Vincent and the

grenadines), 3-4 schools---

• Promoting the 6 components

that summarizes the Brazilian

approach



• Sensitization and mobilization of key stakeholders (GOV,

private sector, others), seeing the school feeding

differently and as a policy instrument to address FNS

• Synergy with TCP/FAO regular fund + Mesoamerica sin

Hambre (Belize)

• Inter-institutional and inter-sectorial coordination

structure (all)

• Nutritional assessments, Review of menus, elaboration

and testing recipes, nutritional plan (Belize, St. Lucia,

Grenada)

• Infrastructure improvement (St. Lucia +Belize)

• School gardens (all)

• Purchase from family farmers (St. Lucia)

The case of St. Lucia

…!



• Some of the main challenges identified so far are:

– Being a new experience piloting in the region, need for continuous technical assistance and in some cases funding

– FAO, has shown great interest in the model allocating more resources, the countries have shown great interest and to some extent commitment, now the challenge is to keep this impetus, enthusiasm and commitment at least for the next 2-3 years to come in other to consolidate the work initiated.

– This is particularly important for: • Follow-up on the use of menus and nutritional plan

• Moving from piloting the purchase from small farmers at a limited time and amount using external resource to something adopted internally by the countries, and bringing assistance of other sectors such as the private sector

• Attaining some sort of maturity of the inter-sectorial and inter-institutional coordination structure of the school feeding for more strategic and self-policy oriented decision making

• Build capacity of resource persons in the Caribbean who can continue with the process of adaptation and scaling-up

4. Vision and the way forward

• It is hoped:

• Under the governments’ leadership, with assistance from

FAO and the support of agencies such as the Brazilian

Cooperation Programme, the private sector and other

partners, the challenges outlined before can be addressed;

and the process in the five countries initiated can continue

• By end of 2017, we can start addressing the interest

expressed by two other countries (Suriname and Guyana) ---

formal request to pilot the model

• Continue with our expansion in 2018 with Bahamas and

Dominica that have also expressed interest in their Country

Program Framework (2016-2019) singed with FAO.

Thank you…!

strengthening school feeding programmes in the caribbean

Presentations & Public Speaking