Paulo Beraldo
Brasilia, Brazil, September 26, 2025 – The Minister of Education, Science and Technology of Belize, Oscar Requena, emphasized the relevance of the work carried out by the Sustainable School Feeding Network (RAES) in Latin America and the Caribbean. According to the minister, this initiative provides key support to member countries in strengthening their national school feeding programmes.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank RAES for the wonderful work they continue to do. Through this coalition and through this network of countries supporting each other, RAES has provided a lot of technical support to our countries. We are very grateful because it helps us to learn new experiences, particularly in how we can strengthen our policies as countries and how we can support the expansion of the school feeding programme.”
RAES is an international cooperation initiative created by the Government of Brazil in 2018, through the FNDE and the ABC/MRE, with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), to strengthen and consolidate school feeding programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Network currently has 18 member countries.
In Minister Oscar Requena’s view, RAES plays a crucial role in fostering regional collaboration and strengthening joint work among countries. “By bringing people together, best practices and experiences are shared and strengthened. Discussions relating to policies and strategic plans to advance school meals programs are also supported”, he noted.
In his analysis, Requena also highlighted that RAES can act as an advocacy platform to mobilize financial support and additional resources, through collaboration and networking with donors and international agencies. The minister further stressed the importance of the Network’s virtual platform, available in three languages, which enables the sharing of information from member countries and dissemination of regional progress. “RAES having a virtual platform to share information from member countries is very important. This supports the continued network and collaboration through timely information”.