African governments are increasingly looking at school feeding as more than a social protection intervention, with growing recognition of its potential to improve education outcomes, strengthen local food systems and create economic opportunities.
This conversation is taking centre stage in Lusaka, Zambia, where government representatives, researchers and development partners from across the world have gathered for the 2026 Global Child Nutrition Forum, taking place from 2 to 5 November under the theme From Vision to Action: Achieving Ambitious School Meal Program Objectives.
Hosted by the Global Child Nutrition Foundation and the Government of the Republic of Zambia, the four-day Forum is providing a platform for countries to exchange experiences and explore practical approaches to expanding and sustaining school meal programmes.
Opening the Forum on Monday, Zambia’s Vice President, Mutale Nalumango, highlighted the country’s progress in expanding its Home-Grown School Meals Programme, which now reaches more than 5.6 million learners across all 116 districts. The programme also creates markets for local farmers by linking food production to the demand generated by schools.
Discussions at the Forum have centred on some of the key requirements for making such programmes sustainable, including predictable financing, stronger local procurement systems, improved nutrition, climate-resilient food supply chains and better coordination between government institutions.
Other sessions have explored how school feeding can create employment and enterprise opportunities for women and young people, while strengthening the participation of smallholder farmers in public food procurement. Delegates are also scheduled to visit schools to observe Zambia’s programme in practice, before the Forum concludes with the adoption of a communiqué outlining government priorities.
Among the organisations participating is Kenya’s Food4Education (F4E), which is sharing experience from its work in developing and operating school-feeding systems at scale.
Its participation comes as the organisation begins a four-year technical partnership with Zambia’s Ministry of Education, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in June 2026. The agreement is aimed at strengthening the country’s existing government-led school-feeding programme and supporting its expansion ambitions.
Under the partnership, Food4Education is providing technical advisory support in areas including programme design, operational systems, policy and institutional coordination, digitalisation, budgeting and financing, procurement, and infrastructure development. The Zambian government retains responsibility for leading, financing and implementing the programme.
The partnership reflects growing opportunities for African countries to learn from one another and adapt approaches that respond to their own institutional and operational needs.
In Kenya, Food4Education has spent more than a decade developing systems that bring together food procurement, preparation, distribution, technology and partnerships to deliver school meals at scale. Founded in 2012, the not-for-profit social enterprise currently serves more than 730,000 children every school day across over 2,700 schools in 19 counties.
To date, it has served more than 250 million meals and created over 6,000 jobs, the majority for women and young people. More than 80 per cent of its food is sourced locally and regionally, supporting farmers and businesses within the food supply chain.
Its Tap2Eat digital platform processes approximately 1.5 million transactions daily, supporting meal verification, digital payments, demand forecasting and operational accountability. The organisation is targeting one million children served every school day in Kenya by 2027.
Beyond the numbers, Kenya’s experience illustrates how school-feeding programmes can connect education and nutrition priorities with wider economic development. Consistent demand from schools can provide farmers with more predictable markets, while creating opportunities across food processing, transport, kitchen operations and other parts of the supply chain.
Vincent Muriuki, Government Relations Lead at Food4Education, said the discussions in Lusaka highlight the importance of building school-feeding programmes around strong national institutions, sustainable financing and local food systems.
“School feeding is increasingly being recognised for the role it can play beyond the classroom. For these programmes to deliver lasting impact, governments need systems that can reliably finance, source, prepare and deliver nutritious meals while creating opportunities within their own economies.”
“Zambia’s experience demonstrates the importance of government leadership and ownership in this process. Our model is built on sharing practical experience and technical expertise to help governments strengthen their own school-feeding systems, drawing on lessons from Kenya while recognising that every country must develop an approach that responds to its unique context.”
“The opportunity across Africa is to build school-feeding programmes that are sustainable, locally driven and capable of reaching more children, while contributing to stronger food systems and livelihoods.”
The discussions in Lusaka come against a backdrop of increasing domestic investment in school feeding across Africa. Approximately 83 per cent of school-feeding financing on the continent comes from domestic resources, while 35 African Union member states have dedicated budget lines for school feeding.
The challenge, therefore, is increasingly about translating political commitments and budget allocations into effective delivery systems that can sustain programmes over time and reach more children.
As the Forum concludes on Thursday, its discussions and country experiences are expected to contribute to a broader agenda for strengthening school meal programmes globally, with governments at the centre of efforts to make school feeding a lasting investment in children and national development.
