Close to 80 million additional children around the world are now receiving school meals through government backed programmes, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced on Wednesday.
That marks a 20% rise since 2020, pushing the global figure to at least 466 million children, according to the latest edition of WFP’s State of School Feeding Worldwide biennial report.
“This is unprecedented progress,” said Carmen Burbano, WFP’s director of school meals and social protection.
“We haven’t seen a programme expand on this scale in at least ten years, and much of it is thanks to governments stepping up and making domestic investments,” she added.
Roughly 60% of the additional children reached since 2020 are in low income nations, the WFP noted. Africa is driving much of the growth, with an extra 20 million children now covered by national school meals initiatives, showing remarkable progress in countries such as Kenya, Madagascar, Ethiopia, and Rwanda.
Global funding for school meals has also boosted significantly, showing the growing commitment to fight hunger and support education worldwide.
