ASSESSMENT OF UNITED NATIONS WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME
SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAM IN GHANA
Terms of Reference
Background and Justification
The United Nations' World Food Programme
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the largest humanitarian agency in the world that seeks to fight
hunger. Begun in 1962, WFP's five objectives are: 1) to save lives and protect livelihoods in
emergencies; 2) prepare for emergencies; 3) restore and rebuild lives after emergencies; 4) reduce
chronic hunger and undernutrition everywhere; and 5) strengthen the capacity of countries to reduce
hunger.1 In both humanitarian aid and post-conflict reconstruction efforts, WFP aims to use food as key
intervention to both save lives and help communities rebuild after emergencies, either natural or manmade.
WFP School Meals Program
WFP’s School Meals initiative provides meals for children and his helping accomplish WFP's
objectives to "reduce chronic hunger and undernutrition everywhere" and "strengthen the capacity of
countries to reduce hunger." The School Meals can offer breakfast, lunch, and/or take-home rations for
children. By offering meals for children in school, the program seeks to enable children to better focus
on their education, provide incentives for parents to send their children to school, and actively serve to
reduce hunger throughout the world.
Take-home rations, such as rice vegetables, and enriched vegetable oil, are especially useful for gender
equity initiatives, enabling the poorest families to send their daughters to school. In addition to
combating hunger and low education participation, the School meals program also helps to reduce
disease by providing fortified food to promote better nutrition. According to the WFP, the School Meals
Program "directly address the goals of reducing hunger by half and achieving universal primary
education by 2015, and of achieving gender parity in education by 2005."
School Meals program partners with governments, UN agencies, NGO's, and the private sector
companies such as Kraft Foods and Unilever. Last year, the school meals were provided to 22 million
school children in 70 countries, particularly in South and Southeast Asia and Africa.
School Meals Programming in Ghana
In 2006-2010, WFP’s country program in Ghana aimed to bolster the Ghanaian government’s school
feeding program (GSFP). The objectives of this program were to help the Ghanaian government
“expand and replicate successful models of food-based programming for raising demand for and supply
of basic education, with gender parity, and health and nutrition services for children under-five years
and pregnant and lactating mothers at risk of malnutrition.”2
Research Focus:
This project will evaluate the impact and implementation of the combined CP and GSFP initiative to
assess the lessons learned for sustainability and replicability in Ghana, as well as other African nations.
1 http://www.wfp.org/about
2 “Evaluation of WFP Country Programme 10418.0 Ghana”. April 2010.
Activities and Outputs
1.
Review the CP and GSFP program operations from 2006-2010.
2.
Analyze and evaluate the coordination of the programs in the Ghanaian context,
including but not limited to:
i.
evaluation of program effectiveness, as measured against program goals and
indicators
ii.
evaluation of program efficiency
3.
Develop recommendations, including but not limited to:
i.
current program sustainability
ii.
replicability of program, including in other countries/regions
4.
Create a PowerPoint presentation incorporating the results of the study, analysis
and recommendations, to be presented to representatives of the World Food Programme.
Intended Beneficiaries
The intended beneficiaries for this project are World Food Programme (regional, country and
headquarters staff).
Timeline and deliverables
Task
Deadline
Review and research
Analysis, resulting in first draft of conclusions and
recommendations
Final draft of conclusions and recommendations
PowerPoint presentation
12/07/10