The WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger went on a mission to Burundi to provide technical assistance to the government in the development of a Home-grown School Feeding Policy along with the WFP country office. The technical cooperation was requested to the Centre by Burundi’s Ministry of Education.
A team of experts carried out the assessment mission from 4 to 12 July, to meet key stakeholders and collect their impressions, advices, insights and considerations to be included in the programme document.
The WFP Centre of Excellence will support the government throughout the process of formulation of the school feeding programme. During the two-week mission, the team had very productive meetings with technical teams of the ministries of Education, Health, Social Protection, and Agriculture, as well as senior management and staff of the WFP country office, local NGOs and other international agencies in the country.
The WFP Centre also carried out a field visit to the Bujumbura Rural Province to have a comprehensive understanding of the government\’s decentralized departments and institutional organisations. This will be fundamental during the school feeding policy design process and later for the implementation of the school feeding programme.
A high-level meeting took place with the minister of Education, Dr. Janvière Ndirahisha, and the minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Dr. Déo-Guide Rurema, who renewed their commitment to jointly design, adopt and implement the future national school feeding policy.
The minister of Education reaffirmed her commitment to eliminating school dropout in the country and acknowledged the contribution of a national school feeding programme to achieve this goal. The minister of Agriculture reiterated the need to have a sustainable programme for the smallholder farmers and cooperatives to consider school feeding as a long-term market for their products and a steady source of income.
