Nairobi: Sub-Saharan Africa has made significant strides in tackling hunger and supporting education, with school meal programmes now reaching an additional 20 million children compared to just three years ago, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Between 2022 and 2024, the number of children receiving meals in schools rose from around 66 million to 87 million.

Countries including Ethiopia, Madagascar, Rwanda, and Chad recorded some of the fastest growth, in some cases expanding coverage sixfold.

The WFP report highlights a major shift in funding sources. Nearly all of the school meal programmes in Africa are now financed directly through national budgets, reducing reliance on international donors.

Nations such as Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Rwanda, and Zambia now fund their programmes almost entirely domestically, while others, including Ethiopia and Burundi, have substantially increased their contributions.

These initiatives are also boosting local economies. In Benin, local procurement of food for school meals added more than 23 million US dollars to the agricultural sector, while in Sierra Leone over one-third of meals were sourced from smallholder farmers.

Globally, school meal programmes supported by governments now cover around 466 million children, an increase of 80 million since 2020. Funding has doubled in the same period, rising from 43 billion to 84 billion US dollars.

Despite the progress, millions of children in fragile and conflict-affected states such as Somalia, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo still lack access to daily school meals.

Rising costs, conflict, and climate-related shocks continue to threaten the sustainability of these programmes.
The WFP warns that Africa remains at risk, with projections indicating that by 2030 the continent could account for 60 percent of the world’s hungry population.

Nonetheless, the expansion of school meal programmes demonstrates the impact of political commitment and coordinated action in addressing child hunger and improving education.