Re-Imagining School Feeding: A High Return Investment in Human Capital and Local Economies is the latest companion publication of the Disease Control Priorities, (DCP3) 3rd edition series. This compendium draws on the latest available evidence and analyses on the impact of school feeding and health nutrition for children and adolescents, provided in DCP3 Volume 8: Child and Adolescent Health and Development.
With a Foreward by Gordon Brown, United Nations Special Envoy for Global Eradication, a Preface by David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Programme and Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, and a Prologue by Carmen Burbano, David Ryckembusch, Meena Fernandes, Arlene Mitchell, and Lesley Drake, this volume ties together the chapters in the Child and Adolescent Health and Development volume of DCP3 that are most relevant to understanding the synergies between health and nutrition, which a particular focus on the efficacy of school-feeding programs.
Key Messages:
- School feeding offers benefits from multiple sectors, providing substantial returns to human capital development, through improved health and education outcomes, while at the same time growing the local economy, through the value of the food to the household and the creation of markets for local farmers.
- Early investment, in the first 1,000 days of life, is critical but not sufficient. A package of investments, including school feeding, throughout the 8,000 days of childhood and adolescence is essential to sustain the early investment and to help young people achieve their potential and thrive.
- The evidence provided in this book helps to explain the paradign shift in school feeding that has ocurred over the last ten years, and fueled demand-led growth in national programmes in rich and poor countries alike.
From the Preface:
"We hope [this] will serve as a call to action for a more coordinated effort to tackle food security, education, and health - with the goal of galvanizing support and improving the efficiency and quality of national school feeding programs. Failure could sentence millions of children to lives of poverty and suffering, but success can lead to a more stable, peaceful, prosperous world, where all children have a chance to thrive and reach for their highest aspirations."
For more information, or to download the school feeding edition of Volume 8, click here.
