Mozambique school feeding success makes the case for more investment
Attendance and enrolments are up as six-month WFP project draws to a close — and urgent funds are needed to extend it
For children facing extreme food insecurity, the promise of take-home food baskets is an incentive for their parents to send them to school, and a sure way to increase attendance.
In Sofala in central Mozambique, many families still struggle to achieve decent livelihoods — that province was the worst-affected when cyclone Idai struck a year ago, with strong rains and floods destroying crops, delaying and reducing harvests.
Between March and July last year, the World Food Programme (WFP)reached 1.8 million people with food assistance in Mozambique. Last October, to help cyclone-Idai affected children and their families get through the lean season in Sofala, Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in Mozambique instituted six months of funding for WFP’s School Feeding Programme.
In the districts of Buzi, Chemba, Chibabava, Muanza and Nhamatanda, 31,000 children and 600 teachers from 81 schools received a food basket with rice, beans, oil and salt to take home and support their families. As the new school year started, an additional 8,000 children were enrolled in those schools.
“In the 2020 school year, we verified a 25 percent increase in enrolment for schools supported with take-home food rations in Sofala,” says Espinola Caribe, head of the WFP sub-office in Beira, capital of the province. “Children’s parents are more willing to make sure kids go to schools where they receive food to help to support their families in difficult times.”
At the Escola Primaria Completa 25 de Junho Tica in Nhamatanda district, cyclone Idai destroyed 14 out of 33 classrooms. “When I arrived here after the cyclone, I cried. All the classrooms that we had built ourselves with local materials were destroyed by the cyclone,” says principal Sandra Maibeque.
While the school was used as a shelter for the community for three weeks that followed the cyclone, principal Sandra gathered parents and school staff to rebuild the destroyed classrooms. “I realized that the Government would not have money to support a full school recovery, so I bought metal sheets and nails with the money we had from a Government fund, got tarps from UN donations and made what you can see today,” she says.
While many students were still failing to enrol at school or to attend classes, things started to change when the WFP food assistance arrived in October 2019. “The school feeding has lifted the school’s morale again,” says Sandra. “Parents of children who were suffering from hunger because their family subsistence farms were destroyed by Idai, started to send their kids to our school because we had a food programme.”
School enrolments rose from 3,004 students in 2019 to 3,359 in 2020.
“Although the increase of school enrolments might mean fuller classrooms, a of 25 percent rise in enrolments due to food distributions is an evidence that the school feeding programme is an important means to improve educational outcomes,” says Pedro Mortara, a WFP school feeding programme and policy officer.
“These children come every day to school because they are afraid of losing the food assistance, at the end of the month they know that they will receive the food basket,” says Sandra.
The Recovery School Feeding programme has drawn to a close, having seen people through the worst part of the lean season in the Sofala — but slightly prematurely.
On 1 April, the Government of Mozambique announced a 30-day state of emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Schools were closed and classes were suspended. WFP Mozambique is negotiating with donors, local partners and the Government to continue all its school feeding programme activities, with some health and safety adaptations.
Looking ahead, the community could only benefit if the programme were to continue even once the pandemic has subsided— that, of course, requires funds. “Additional support in form of food assistance to keep children attending school for longer periods, instead of having to help their parents to earn a living working on the land or dropping out due to early marriage or pregnancy, means changing their and their families’ future,” says Pedro.
To continue improving the lives of the 39,000 children enrolled in the 81 participating schools — as well as those of their families — through the year, and scale up the good results of the school feeding programme, WFP is appealing to the donor community for support to ensure Mozambique’s school children receive essential food assistance going forward.
As Espinola Caribe puts it: “School feeding is a concrete example of how a humanitarian response to a crisis situation can be transformed into a development model for a durable solution to support families while they rebuild their livelihoods.”
