Kigali, 26 June 2023: The East African Regional School Meal Coalition Network Meeting kicked off in Kigali from 26 to 27 June 2023 to engage in peer-to-peer learning and experience sharing and making advocacy efforts to promote school meal programmes.

The global School Meals Coalition was launched at the UN Summit on Food Systems in September 2021, and it brings together over 82 countries as well as 90 partners. The coalition aims to give every child in need the opportunity to receive a nutritious meal at school by 2030.

In addition to Rwanda, several countries in the region have expressed interest in joining the regional network including Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.

In his opening remarks, Hon. Gaspard Twagirayezu said that the establishment of East Africa Regional Network marks the beginning of a journey to address common school health and nutrition challenges, learn from each other, allow peer to peer learning and sharing of experiences across the region and added that Rwanda has an ambitious National Comprehensive School Feeding Policy with a vision of providing sustainable, adequate, and nutritious meals through locally purchases, creating a large new market for national farmers.

Hon. Gaspard Twagirayezu, Minister of State in charge of Primary and Secondary Education

 “School feeding programs also means school health and it requires multiple actors and there is a need to ensure that there is a strong political will at Country level and Rwanda is willing to engage different actors to make the school feeding programme a reality.  I am happy to note that it was good to come together and learn from one another and we are quite confident, and we are going to strengthen regional collaboration as far as School feeding programme is concerned and by Joining Eastern African School Meals Coalition Network, Rwanda will benefit from other regional countries’ experience in various sector from Education, Health, Social Protection, Agriculture. He added.

On the second day of East African Regional School Meal Coalition Network Conference, participants from various institutions visited Kigali Genocide Memorial and two schools GS Kimironko and GS Karembure to learn more about school feeding program in Rwanda.

Ahmareen Karim, WFP Rwanda’s Acting Country Director, stressed that school feeding may be a game changer for developing countries’ futures by promoting human capital development and creating a powerful platform to build sustainable food systems. 

Ahmareen Karim, WFP Rwanda’s Acting Country Director

In Rwanda, the government has taken a leadership role in promoting sustainable school meal programmes, emphasising the human capital agenda. The WFP’s home-grown school feeding programme has provided nutritious meals to children in more than seven districts so far, promoting their education, health, and sanitation. The goal of the programme is to ensure that every child receives a healthy meal every day by 2030.

The Rwandan government has committed to universal school meal coverage and has increased its budget for the national school feeding programme from Rwf40 million in 2021 to over Rwf78 billion in 2022-2023 school year and is expected to raise up to more over Rwf 90 billion in upcoming 2023-2024 school year.