Project Consolidation of School Feeding Programmes in LAC organized meeting with 6 countries of the region
Paulo Beraldo
Brasília, February 10, 2023 – The project Consolidation of School Feeding Programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean held on Tuesday, February 7, the first meeting with Latin American countries to discuss the support of the Brazil-FAO Cooperation to the development of national activities to strengthen school feeding programmes in 2023. Representatives of Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru participated in the virtual meeting.
The project is carried out by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (ABC/MRE), by the National Fund for Educational Development of the Ministry of Education (FNDE/MEC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
The meeting briefly reviewed the history of the Brazil-FAO Cooperation in school feeding, started in 2009. The creation of the Sustainable School Feeding Network (RAES, by its Spanish acronym) and the work that has been carried out with national and regional actions to strengthen and consolidate the school feeding programmes in LAC were also highlighted.
It was detailed that the Brazil-FAO Cooperation approved for 2023 direct support for carrying out strategic actions developed by the countries, especially those that developed the Sustainable Schools methodology. Strategic actions are those that can promote the necessary advances in each of the programmes. Countries will be able to develop internal missions, face-to-face events, exchanges of experiences, studies, surveys, publications, training, among others.
Israel Ríos, FAO Nutrition Officer, said that the Organization is an important actor to promote school feeding policies in LAC and that the presence of the countries and government actors is very important. He also thanked the Brazil-FAO Cooperation and highlighted the need to make this support visible at the national and regional levels.
Najla Veloso, coordinator of the school feeding project of the Brazil-FAO Cooperation, explained the ways in which this action can positively impact the policies of each country and the role of the national FAO Offices in the planning and implementation of these activities together with national governments. She also mentioned some of the regional actions planned for 2023, mentioning the II Congress of School Feeding, in May; the Sustainable Schools Exchange Mission, in August, and the closing event of the project, in October.
In the end, different countries thanked the support of the Brazil-FAO Cooperation on school feeding, such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama and Nicaragua. “This talk, without a doubt, opens windows of opportunities for us to position the work that is being done in Guatemala in terms of school feeding,” said Marco Moncayo, from FAO Guatemala. “These supports will be very valuable” reinforced Reina Osorio, from FAO El Salvador.
