Over 60 countries looking to move from externally funded to government-led school feeding programmes are being supported to do so using research tools developed by Imperial College London’s
Partnership for Child Development,
World Bank and
World Food Programme.
The tools form part of the World Bank’s
Systems Approach For Better Education Results (SABER), which has been traditionally used in analyzing data on education systems around the world, highlighting relevant policies which promote education for all. Now, for the first time, SABER is being used in school feeding (SF), and the 60 countries are part of the ‘SABER-SF’ pilot phases which begun in January and runs to July 2015.
The tools include a user manual, a comprehensive questionnaire and a scoring sheet, and information from these as well as specific SABER reports put together by the countries, will provide a comprehensive picture of current
school feeding and
school health situations, the contributions of these interventions to global education achievements and poverty reduction. Importantly, the tools will also outline where there are existing policy gaps so governments and partners know where to focus resources on and what national and regional activities should be developed.
Looking forward, this information will be widely disseminated to potential funders, UN partners and the World Bank so that effective support to school feeding programmes can be provided.
