Rethinking School Feeding Social Safety Nets, Child Development, and the Education Sector

This review was undertaken jointly by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Bank Group, building on the comparative advantages of both organizations. The overall objective is to provide guidance on how to develop and implement effective school feeding programs, in the context of both a productive safety net, as part of the response to the social shocks of the current global crises, as well as a fiscally sustainable investment in human capital as part of long-term global efforts to achieve Education for All and provide social protection for the poor. The analysis was initiated in response to enhanced demand for school feeding programs from low-income countries affected by the social shocks of the current global crises, and focused first on the role of school feeding as a social safety net. This proved to be too narrow a context, and the analyses evolved to address the longer-term implications for social protection and the development of human capital as part of national policy.