The Egyptian Government has presented a national strategy to expand its school-feeding activities during a School Feeding side event organised alongside an Executive Board meeting of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
WFP in Egypt has been supporting the National School Feeding Programme (NSFP) since 1968 and is currently reaching 636,000 children with its in-school fortified date bar snacks.
The Egyptian delegation presented at the board meeting in Rome its plan to further expand the NSFP to reach all government-funded schools. WFP’s strong partnership with the Egyptian government is crucial in supporting this expansion, as the continuing working relationship between WFP and its government counterparts has been a best practice that ensured expansion of the programme and scale-up of operations.
The Ministry of Social Solidarity developed the strategy, in coordination with the Ministries of Education, Health and Population, Agriculture and Land Reclamation and key stakeholders.
“The Government considers school feeding as one of the mechanisms that complements the development of social protection in Egypt from an equity-based approach,” said Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali.
“School feeding provides children with a nutritional meal that responds to the nutritional needs of school children, improves their cognitive capacities, and also eases some of the financial burden on their families,” she added. “The government is exerting efforts to alleviate poverty and to eventually contribute to social and economic development.”
“We are working very closely with the Egyptian Government in targeting the communities most in need in Egypt with our school-feeding activities. The date bars that WFP provides to the children in schools are fortified with vitamins and minerals that provide 25 per cent of the child’s daily nutritional needs,” said Menghestab Haile, WFP Acting Country Director in Egypt.
The European Union is one of the major contributors, along with the United States, Germany, and private-sector members, to school-feeding
programmes in Egypt.
Watani International
27 February 2016