The alliance is discussing ways to support measures to reintroduce, improve and expand school meals, and ensure that every child around the world has a healthy meal at school by 2030.
In early 2020, school feeding programs around the world provided more meals than ever before, reaching 388 million children.
However, after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, programs came to a halt as almost all countries closed their schools, leaving 370 million children in school without school meals, which for many of them was the only meal of the day they depended on for nutrition.
This outage highlighted the important role that schools play not only in providing education but also in providing important health and nutritional services for children.
The Revitalized School Meals Alliance has three primary goals: to resume existing national school meals and to provide school health services by 2022; To reach the 73 million needy children who did not have access to meals even before the pandemic by 2030; Improving the overall quality and efficiency of programs by 2030.
It is estimated that $5.8 billion is needed annually to provide these 73 million children in need with school meals and complementary health interventions.
In this regard, Carmen Burbano, the official in charge of the School Feeding Department at the World Food Program, told “Sky News Arabia”, “The School Meals Alliance is the best government program launched in a long time.”
“People need to understand that in order for children to go to school, they need nutrition, so that they can learn and focus during their lessons,” Burbano added.
And she continued, “Therefore, this alliance is one of the most important programs that exist to help children, and it has an educational goal.”
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