A delegation from Swaziland was in Brasilia, capital of Brazil, to learn about the Brazilian multi-sectoral approach to Zero Hunger, the country’s school feeding programme, and the policies to strengthen smallholder farming. From 31 July to 4 August, the delegation comprised of two ministers of state and high-level staff from various governmental sectors engaged with representatives from the Brazilian government to understand the legal, institutional, and financial frameworks of the main social policies in place in the country.
Besides holding meetings with government officers responsible for planning and implementing the policies, the delegation also participated in field trips to see first-hand the Brazilian school feeding programme, to understand the structure of the food supply system and the school feeding food chain, and to learn about rural extension and the contribution of smallholder farmers to food security in Brazil.
Swaziland
“We believe that every child must be fed – without anything in their stomachs, children cannot learn”, said the minister of Education of Swaziland, Phineas Langa Magagula. Swaziland has a governmental school feeding programme since 2010 that covers 841 public schools and reaches about 340,000 children. “We want to improve our school meals programme, based on what we learn from the Brazilian experience,” said minister Magagula.
The main objective of the programme is to provide the students with a hot and nutritious meal each school day. The programme is implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, to ensure that local farmers produce food to supply to schools, with benefits for the smallholder farmers and for the children, who have access to fresh food. The minister of Agriculture, Moses Malindane Vilakati highlighted the importance of knowledge exchange for the programme: “South-South cooperation is very important and we count on Brazil, WFP, and the Centre of Excellence to assist us in improving our school feeding programme”.
Technical meetings
In the meetings with FNDE, the Swazi delegation had a chance to understand how the Brazilian school feeding is structured, the roles and responsibilities of each institution involved in its implementation, the financing mechanisms, and the set of regulations pertaining the nutritional and educational aspects of the programme.
The delegation also discussed with Brazilian government officers the public policies in place in Brazil to support smallholder farmers, boost small-scale food production and organize food supply chain. With the Brazilian Ministry of Health, Swaziland representatives understood the role of the Ministry in following up on the conditionalities of social programmes, such as the cash transfer programme Bolsa Família, the Brazilian unified health system, nutrition policies, and the country’s strategies to overcome the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Field trip
To see first-hand the integration of all the policies and programmes discussed during the technical meetings with Brazilian officers, the delegation went on field trips. They visited a rural school and an urban school, a smallholder farmers’ cooperative, and a small farm near Brasília. They saw, from the point of view of the farmer, how the school feeding programme food chain is structured, and the impact of the allocation of 30 percent of the programme’s budget to the purchase of food produced by smallholder farmers. They visited the public food bank, the popular restaurant, and a Centre of Reference in Social Assistance (CRAS), which works as the entrance door for vulnerable populations to social assistance in Brazil.
The representatives of Swaziland prepared an action plan by the end of the visit, stating the next steps to take advantage of their experience in Brazil to improve their social policies, especially the school feeding programme. The government expects that the lessons learned from Brazil will help them improve the institutional, legal, policy and financial frameworks and mechanisms necessary for the establishment of a sustainable home-grown school feeding programme and a public food acquisition programme.
