Nutrition Guidelines and Standards for School Meals a Report from 33 Low and Middle-Income Countries
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Nutrition guidelines and standards for school meals A report from 33 low and middle-income countries z h i j g k f y e l m x d c n w b o v p u a q r s t Nutrition guidelines and standards for school meals A report from 33 low and middle-income countries Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Rome, 2019 Required citation: FAO. 2019. Nutrition guidelines and standards for school meals: a report from 33 low and middle-income countries. Rome. 106 pp. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers, whether or not these have been patented, does not imply that these have been endorsed or recommended by FAO in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned. The views expressed in this information product are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of FAO. ISBN 978-92-5-131183-7 © FAO, 2019 Some rights reserved. This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO licence (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo/legalcode/legalcode). Under the terms of this licence, this work may be copied, redistributed and adapted for non-commercial purposes, provided that the work is appropriately cited. In any use of this work, there should be no suggestion that FAO endorses any specific organization, products or services. The use of the FAO logo is not permitted. If the work is adapted, then it must be licensed under the same or equivalent Creative Commons licence. If a translation of this work is created, it must include the following disclaimer along with the required citation: “This translation was not created by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). FAO is not responsible for the content or accuracy of this translation. The original [Language] edition shall be the authoritative edition. Disputes arising under the licence that cannot be settled amicably will be resolved by mediation and arbitration as described in Article 8 of the licence except as otherwise provided herein. The applicable mediation rules will be the mediation rules of the World Intellectual Property Organization http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/mediation/rules and any arbitration will be conducted in accordance with the Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Third-party materials. Users wishing to reuse material from this work that is attributed to a third party, such as tables, figures or images, are responsible for determining whether permission is needed for that reuse and for obtaining permission from the copyright holder. The risk of claims resulting from infringement of any third-party-owned component in the work rests solely with the user. Sales, rights and licensing. FAO information products are available on the FAO website (www.fao.org/publications) and can be purchased through [email protected]. Requests for commercial use should be submitted via: www.fao.org/contact-us/licence-request. Queries regarding rights and licensing should be submitted to: [email protected]. Contents Acknowledgements vi Abbreviations vii Executive summary ix Introduction 1 The role of schools as centres for development 1 A focus on nutrition 2 The need for nutrition guidelines and standards 4 Methodology 7 Socio-ecological model 7 Participants and recruitment 7 Survey instrument 7 Data collection 8 Sample of countries 8 Limitations 9 The report: aims and structure 11 A note on terminology 11 Section I. Setting the scene for school meal programmes 15 Broad nutritional and dietary issues in schoolchildren 17 Overview of school meal programmes and their potential implications for nutrition guidelines and standards 18 1. Types of school meal programmes in place within the sample countries 18 2. Main programme objectives 18 3. Policy and legal frameworks supportive of school meal programmes 26 4. Main targeting approaches for selecting beneficiaries 31 5. Broad modalities of food procurement, distribution and preparation 34 6. Some examples of meals/snacks provided 40 7. Complementary interventions 46 Section II. Nutrition guidelines and standards 49 State of nutrition guidelines and standards in the respondent countries 51 1. Countries with official nutrition guidelines and standards 51 2. Types and focuses of the NGS identified 54 3. Energy and nutrient-based standards 57 4. Food-based standards and guidelines 61 5. Relevance of food-based dietary guidelines 69 6. Food safety linkages to the NGS 70 7. References to the food environment and other available foods 72 8. Mechanisms in place/recommended to aid the implementation of the NGS 75 9. Monitoring of NGS 77 10. Some challenges identified to successful implementation of NGS 79 Section III. Recommendations 83 References 87 Annexes 91 Annex I. Low and middle-income countries considered for the survey 92 Annex II. General information about survey respondents 94 v Acknowledgements Nutrition Guidelines and Standards for School Meals: A Report from 33 Low and Middle-Income Countries, is the result of a collaborative effort between FAO’s Nutrition and Food Systems Division with other technical divisions (Development Law and Food Safety) and regional/sub-regional/country offices. Firstly, we wish to acknowledge the contributions from FAO focal points and our partners from government institutions, who dedicated their time and expertise to the optimal completion of the School Meals Nutrition Guidelines and Standards (NGS) survey. This report was prepared by Melissa Vargas under the technical supervision of Fatima Hachem and Ana Islas. Particular thanks are extended to: Ellen Muehlhoff (ex-FAO) who commissioned this work; Yenory Hernández- Garbanzo, who led the initial technical work including the conceptualization of the study design, literature review, survey development and recruitment of participants in collaboration with Rachel McBride (ex-FAO); and to Melissa Vargas, who built on this work to lead the follow-up recruitment, literature review, data collection, data analysis and development of the report. We would also like to thank all the following individuals who supported the technical development and revisions of this report: Fatima Hachem, Ana Islas, Luisa Cruz, Komkrit Onsrithong, Luana Swensson, Margret Vidar, Deborah BadombenaWanta (ex-FAO), Diana Carter, Andrea Polo Galante and Dirk Schulz. Acknowledgements are extended to the Nutrition and Food Systems Division publications technical review team, to Paul Neate for editing and significantly improving the readability of the report and to Maria Guardia for the layout and graphic design of the final publication. vi Abbreviations FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FBDGs Food-based dietary guidelines GLOPAN Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition HGSM Home-grown school meals ICN2 Second International Conference on Nutrition LMICs Low and middle-income countries M&E Monitoring and evaluation NGOs Non-governmental organizations NGS Nutrition guidelines and standards SDGs Sustainable Development Goals SFNE School-based food and nutrition education UNU United Nations University WFP World Food Programme WHO World Health Organization vii Executive summary Poverty eradication, health, education, food security and nutrition continue to be pillars of sustainable development. Schools can make a sizeable, lasting impact on these determinants of development through various pathways, and holistic school meal programmes have an important role to play. Still, many of these programmes can further benefit from a stronger emphasis on the quality, adequacy and nutritional composition of the meals provided, primarily through the development and implementation of nutrition guidelines and standards (NGS). This report provides a descriptive overview of the situation of school meal NGS in 33 low and middle-income countries as reported through a global survey, and identifies key aspects to consider for stakeholders who are planning to develop or update their NGS in the context of school meal programmes. This document is part of FAO’s work on school food and nutrition, and is in line with the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) Framework for Action, and the work plan of the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition. The findings are organized in two sections. The first provides the context and identifies the main characteristics of school meal programmes relevant for establishing, improving and/or implementing effective nutrition guidelines and standards. The second presents the official school meal NGS identified in the respondent countries, their scope, the complementary efforts that aid their implementation, the main monitoring and evaluation actions and key challenges reported. Section I highlights the need for a good understanding of the current situation of school meal programmes within a country and the context in which they operate in order to devise nutritional guidelines and standards that are feasible, responsive to actual needs and appropriate in scope. This requires the active