United Nations System
Standing Committee on Nutrition

 

SCN Working Group on Nutrition of School-Age Children

held during the ACC/SCN 28th Session in Nairobi, Kenya, on Monday 2 April 2001

Chair: Don Bundy, World Bank
Rapporteurs: Joy del Rosso, Save the Children, US; Lesley Drake, Partnership for Child Development

Progress Since Last Meeting

It was decided to hold an extraordinary meeting of this Working Group (a meeting was not formally due until 2002) for two reasons. First, there is an enhanced focus on school feeding and food-for-education as a result of new initiatives. Second, there is enhanced UN activity on school health and nutrition as a result of the launch of the FRESH (Focusing Resources on Effective School Health) Partnership (UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank) at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal (April 2000). Country programs using the FRESH framework and supported by all four original partners are now being rolled out in at least 11 countries in Africa.

Progress has been made on recommendations made at the last year's meeting of the Working Group, as follows:

  1. Prepare a technical review of the health and nutritional status of the school-age child globally. This has been undertaken by the Partnership for Child Development and is currently undergoing technical review. It is available in draft form. The expected completion date is September 2001.
  2. Prepare a list of good practices for school-based health and nutrition services that aimed to improve the health, nutrition and learning outcomes of schoolchildren. This was based around the components of the FRESH framework. Technical rationales for each component have been completed by the FRESH partners (UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO and World BANK), with the assistance of the Partnership for Child Development, and are undergoing technical review. The expected distribution date is August 2001. A list is being prepared by the Partnership for Child Development which will be continuously updated and shared through the FRESH website before the next working group meeting.
  3. Increase access to knowledge in the area of school nutrition and health through the internet. A joint website on school health is now launched (www.ceid.ox.ac.uk/schoolhealth) with UNICEF, UNESCO, WHO, World Bank, PAHO, USAID and the Partnership for Child Development. This site includes a bibliography on nutrition and school feeding and background documents in progress. A website on the FRESH Partnership is under construction (www.freshschools.org) with UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, World Bank and the Partnership for Child Development. A website on food-for-education will be launched in time for the next meeting of the Working Group.
  4. Harmonise partner agency approaches to nutrition in the education sector, with a special regard to the place of food in the FRESH framework. WFP is now an active partner in FRESH, especially with regard to linking FRESH interventions with school feeding, nutrition education and girl's education. The role of food in education has been explored in various forums. For example, there was a USAID-sponsored stakeholders' meeting on food-for- education in October 2000. There were also discussions between the chair of the Working Group and WFP in March 2001.

Working Group Agenda

Welcome and update on the Focusing Resources on Effective School Health (FRESH) Partnership (Don Bundy, Working Group Chair, World Bank).

Deworming & Micronutrients for Education: the role of school health and nutrition programs (Lesley Drake, The Partnership for Child Development).

Food-for-Education: A FRESH Start for the poorest children (World Food Program).

Next steps for strategic partnerships on food and nutrition in the education sector.

  1. Food and nutrition throughout childhood - what are the infrastructural opportunities for delivering food and promoting nutrition for infants, preschool and school-age children? A joint WFP/WB study.
  2. Linking school-based health interventions with school nutrition interventions. A joint WFP/CIDA/WHO/WB initiative.
  3. Responding to the challenge of creating effective school nutrition and health programs:
  1. Identifying the scale of the problem: targeting the hungry poor;
  2. Exit strategies, sustainability and the community;
  3. Effective monitoring.

Recommendations

1.  WFP should coordinate an expert technical group, comprised of representatives from the appropriate agencies, participating countries, NGOs and technical institutions, to address the outstanding challenges in creating effective school nutrition and health programs. Challenges to be addressed should include:

  1. An evaluation of the economic and social benefits of school feeding, including a comparison with nutrition programs for other target groups including other age groups and populations in emergency situations;
  2. Develop methods to be used at the country level to identify high risk groups for feeding, to prioritise these groups, and to determine both the scale of the problem and the resources required;
  3. Identify good practices in the following areas:
    (a) Exit strategies from food-aid assisted school feeding programs;
    (b) Community based approaches to building effective and sustainable school feeding programs, including the relative roles of food aid and local food;
  4. Develop effective systems for monitoring and evaluation.

WFP is seeking strong technical partners to develop best practices for food- for-education. The WFP proposed to the Working Group that the WFP coordinate an expert technical group to promote partnership and knowledge sharing. The Working Group identified a number of challenges that should be explored as a priority. As a specific outcome of the meeting, WFP and the World Bank agreed to work together, and with other partners, at the country level in Africa where there were opportunities to explore the joint roles of WFP and World Bank projects for mothers and infants (IMCI and MCH projects), under 5y children (ECD projects) and school-age children (FRESH and school feeding projects).

2. There should be greater emphasis on nutrition strategies that improve education, health and nutritional outcomes, through improved coordination among agencies, NGOs, technical institutions and governments and improved coordination at the country level.

The Working Group recognised that there is often a lack of coordination both within and between sectors. Two examples raised during the Working Group meeting were that nutritional advice given to parents during ECD programs may not be consistent with nutritional practices in schools, and that there is often no articulation between school feeding practices and health and nutrition education in schools. There is a need for improved stakeholder coordination to harmonise the vision for school nutrition, especially across the health, nutrition and education sectors, and a particular need for coordinated strategies at the country level. As an outcome of the Working Group, WFP, World Bank, WHO and CIDA have agreed to hold two workshops in each of francophone and anglophone Africa to explore how FRESH school-based services (especially deworming) can be synergistically linked with school feeding. These workshops will include participation from the education and health sectors and from all agencies involved.