Nigerian National Home-Grown School Feeding Program Sourcebook

School feeding is the world’s most extensive safety net, with nearly one in two primary school children receiving a subsidised meal every school day. Over the last decade the coverage has doubled in Africa to 65.9 million school children, with the fastest rate of growth in Nigeria, up from 1.05 million in 2017 to 9.9 million in 2022.Nigeria has created the largest school meals program south of the Sahara by designing-in four key principles: transparency and accountability; equity diet quality and sustainability; and growing the local economy. The programme has created 106,000 jobs, mainly for women, and provides over 200,000 local farmers with a reliable, weekly market for food, including 7.6 million locally sourced eggs and 98 metric tons of fish from local aquaculture.This sourcebook explores how the Federal government, and the State governments together created this huge program, and how they continue to work together to deliver this support daily to the nation’s schoolchildren.The editors of this book were part of the growth of this exceptional national programme. The book, launched at the African Union Summit on the Africa School Feeding Day, Addis Ababa, March 1st 2023, is essential reading for researchers, implementing agencies and policy makers.