In Tsongobory, a poor suburb of Toliara in southern Madagascar, thousands of families struggle to provide daily food for their children because consecutive years of drought since 2018 have affected people’s livelihoods and eroded communities' resilience.

Agriculture, which is one source of work and income, is rainfed. But in these urban areas, many people tend to rely on casual jobs, such as washing clothes for others, running small street businesses, selling local products like fish or cassava or working as caretakers for private individuals. They do not have a regular and reliable source of income that allows them to provide food for their families.

In the public primary school of Tsongobory, the World Food Programme (WFP), in partnership with the Ministry of National Education, has been running the school feeding program since 2015, providing daily rations of cereals, pulses and oil. In 2022, GPE helped extend the reach of WFP’s critical school feeding program in districts where the long-term effects of drought have led to severe food insecurity.

Since 2023, WFP has introduced the Home-Grown School Feeding (HGSF) model, which supports schools in procuring fresh and nutritious local products such as vegetables, fruits and even fish to complement the dry rations provided by WFP and promote a more diversified and nutritious diet.

Community engagement is crucial

To ensure sustainability of the school feeding program, the community is involved through Local School Feeding Management Committees. With financial and technical support from WFP, they contribute to the construction of kitchens and refectories by providing material available locally.

Mothers of students cook and serve the school meals using a rotative system, while the storekeeper manages the school food stocks.

The involvement of parents and local smallholder farmers in supplying school canteens with fresh products increases ownership and responsibility and aims to facilitate the phasing out of WFP’s support over time.

It costs WFP US$45 a year to provide two diversified and nutritious hot meals a day to a student.

Linking smallholder farmers to the program and providing them with dedicated training and support, the HGSF model helps to boost the local economy. It enables the trained farmers to improve their production, which they sell to the schools and local markets, thus generating additional income which they can reinvest.

Moreover, WFP has equipped the schools with non-food items and trained the school management committees in school feeding management so that they can run the program themselves in the long term.

Positive impacts of school feeding

Tsitofany, 12 years old, attends the Tsongobory Primary School. He is inspired by his dedicated teacher, Mr. Christopher. “He is dynamic and knows everything!” Tsitofany says.

The nutritious meals served daily in the school canteen are an encouragement for him to continue attending classes with success.

In his spare time, Tsitofany likes to read. He hopes that all children, especially those whose parents struggle to make ends meet, can benefit from school feeding.

The school's head teacher, Firose Soazanany, proudly explains the positive impact of the program on educational indicators: "Since the establishment of the school canteen, the number of enrollments has increased from 400 in 2016 to 600 in 2023. Similarly, the pass rate in the official CEPE (certificate of primary studies) exam has increased from 13% in 2016 to 92% in 2023.”

WFP’s assessments of the benefits of the school feeding program confirm this analysis. In 2023, the provision of daily meals to students in food-insecure districts contributed to an attendance rate of 82%, up from 76% in 2022.

This was mostly due to the school canteens which attracted students and incentivized the parents to send their children to school. The retention rate in 2023 was 98.5%, indicating that interventions were helping to keep children at school.

Volazara, a mother, confirms the importance of the program for her family. She has five children who attend Tsongobory Primary School and benefit from school feeding.

The Ministry of National Education and WFP are implementing the school feeding program for 320,000 children in 986 public primary schools in 20 districts, mainly of the southern and southeastern regions of the country.

GPE provided emergency support from 2022 to 2023 to help the government and WFP reach over 20,700 children in 83 schools in districts where the drought has led to severe food insecurity.