The Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) played a host to a strong team of officials from Nigeria National office of the School Feeding Programme as part of the implementation of the Technical Home-grown School Feeding Learning Platform initiated by the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD). It was supported by the World Food Programme (WFP).
The team was in Ghana to learn about Ghana's best practices in the management and implementation of the Home-grown School Feeding Programme in Ghana and to also share their best experiences with Ghana.
The Ghana School Feeding Programme which started in 2005 by the former President, John Agyekum Kufuor is regarded as one of the trailblazers in Africa and has been a point of reference for other member states, as far as the HGSF programme is concerned.
Caterers of the Ghana School Feeding Programme across the entire country are mandated to source at least 80% of their food supplies from the local farmers in their communities.
Speaking at the meeting held at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Center in Accra between the Ghana and Nigerian officials, Mrs. Kefilwe Roba Moalosi, a Senior Nutrition Officer from AUDA-NEPAD said the technical learning platform is created as a tool for member countries to learn, share best practices and experiences in designing and implementing the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programmes, particularly through the use of biofortified crops for improved quality of school menus.
She said that the tool will help analyze the existing school menus to ensure that what is being given to the children meet the right nutrition standards.
The AUDA-NEPAD official therefore called on African Governments to help improve the quality of meal in the schools by investing more in the school feeding programme which directly affects the lives of millions of children.
Meanwhile, the Ghana School Feeding Programme currently feeds over 3.8 million children whiles their counterparts in Nigeria feed about 10 million children on every school going day with funding from the Central government.
Menus for the various school feeding beneficiary schools are crafted out from the popular and most available foodstuffs in each region, district or community.
There were PowerPoint presentations from both the Nigeria and Ghanaian officials on the HGSF programme design and implementation in the two countries - highlighting the challenges, gaps and opportunities.
The Ghana School Feeding Programme has one of the strongest monitoring systems and has also taken the lead in developing a modern validation and monitoring tool [in a digitized form] with support from World Food Programme (WFP) to correct all the misconceptions and negative human interferences in the collection of data.
The Ghana School Feeding Programme has also made conscious efforts to link its Caterers to the local farmers and other food suppliers for continuous food supply at local and national levels.
Prior to the meeting, was a practical nutrition and innovation cooking training funded by the AUDA-NEPAD with support from WFP at the Efua Sutherland Children’s Park in Accra which coincided with the International Women’s Day celebration. The team from Nigeria was taken to some Ghana school feeding beneficiary schools as part of their visit.
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