Every day, millions of children around the world go to school on an empty stomach—hunger affects their concentration and ability to learn. There are also millions of children—particularly girls—who simply do not go school because their families need them to help in the fields or perform domestic duties. In conflict-affected countries, where children are twice as likely to be out of school than their peers in stable countries – 2.5 times more likely in the case of girls.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has six decades of experience supporting school feeding and health initiatives and working with more than 100 countries to set up sustainable national school feeding programmes. WFP’s ultimate goal is to encourage and facilitate national government ownership of these programmes - a transition that has already happened in 44 countries. In 2019, 17.3 million schoolchildren received nutritious meals and snacks from WFP in 59 countries. Working with governments to build capacity, WFP helped bolster the national school feeding programmes of 65 countries, benefitting a further 39 million children.