GHANA SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAMME PARTNERS’ CONFERENCE 16-17 December, Holiday Inn Airport, Accra Draft, February 1st, 2010 For internal use only TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Acronyms 3 Executive summary 4 1. OPENING REMARKS & KEYNOTE ADDRESS Introduction: Opening remarks By key partners 12 Key Note Address Honourable Minister Mr. 13 Joseph Yieleh Chireh, Minister of Local and Rural Development PLENARY SESSIONS NOTES: Page Session Title Presenter number 2. Understanding School Ms Levina Owusu, Chief Rural 17 Feeding in Ghana Planning Officer, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development 3. Rethinking School Feeding Dr Lesley Drake, Partnership 21 and WFP’s Policy and Strategy for Child Development Mr. Luay Basil, WFP School Feeding 4. Looking at options for Ms Eunice Dapaah 23 Scaling up School Feeding in Mr. Tom Elion, Boston Ghana in a sustainable way: Consultants Group coverage, targeting and costs Ms Licia Minervini, Boston Consultants Group 5. Linking school feeding with Dr. Lesley Drake, Partnership 27 local production and rural for Child Development (on development: the Home-Grown behalf of USDA) Model 6. A model linking School Mr Kwame Nuako, Technical 29 Feeding to local agricultural Advisor (GSFP Secretariat) production Mr. Thomas Yeboah, WFP Ghana country office BREAKOUT SESSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 7. A Roadmap for sustainable school feeding in Ghana 33 8. Conclusions and recommendations 43 9. ANNEXES Annex 1: Conference Agenda 48 Annex 2: Participants list 52 Annex 3: Maps – Undernourishment and School Feeding, Poverty 54 Headcount and Poverty Gap (WFP/BCG) Annex 4: Outputs from group discussions 58 FEEDING 2 THE NATION’S FUTURE LEADERS LIST OF ACRONYMS ADRA Adventist Development and Relief Agency CAADP Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme CBO Community-based organization CSB Corn-soya blend CSO DA Districts Assembly DIC District Implementation Committee FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FBO GES Ghana Education Service GHS Ghana Health Service GH¢ Farmers’ Based Organisation GPRS Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy GSFP Ghana School Feeding Programme M&E monitoring and evaluation MDG Millennium Development Goal MLGRD Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development MMDA MoE Ministry of Education MoFA Minister of Food and Agriculture MoFEP Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning MoH Ministry of Health MOU memorandum of understanding NDPC National Development Planning Commission NEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development NGO non-governmental organization P4P Purchase for Progress PCD Partnership for Child Development SMC School Management Committee PTA parent-teacher association RNE SIC School Implementation Committee SNV Netherlands Development Organisation UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund USDA United States Department of Agriculture VAM vulnerability analysis and mapping WFP World Food Programme WHO World Health Organization BCG Boston Consulting Group FEEDING 3 THE NATION’S FUTURE LEADERS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Introduction The Ghana School Feeding Programme held a Partners’ Conference on December 16th and 17th, 2009, at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Accra, to support the Government of Ghana in developing strategies for effective and sustainable home grown school feeding. The Conference was under the auspices of the Honourable Minister Joseph Yieleh Chireh, Local Government and Rural Development. The Ghana School Feeding Program (GSFP) was launched in 2005 in 10 pilot schools, one in each administrative region. It aims at linking school feeding with the support to local agricultural production, in line with the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) -- Pillar 3-- which seeks to enhance food security and reduce hunger in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on poverty, hunger and primary education. Its implementation is decentralised, with key roles given to District Assemblies. Currently, the program reaches 657,000 children in all the districts of the country and provides them one hot balanced meal each school going day. The Conference came at a crucial time to take stock of the state of school feeding in Ghana, learn from the experience of the first four years of implementation and use the lessons in the preparation of the second phase of the GSFP, scheduled to start in 2011. The conference also coincided with the new approach of school feeding advocated by the World Bank and the World Food Programme as a social protection instrument and a food-based safety net with the growing interest of linking school feeding to local agriculture production. The objectives The conference focused on the following main objectives: i. The role of school feeding in addressing hunger in children in Ghana and supporting their development is shared and agreed among stakeholders; ii. Coordination and partnerships around school feeding are strengthened; iii. Quality standards for sustainable school feeding programmes are agreed among stakeholders; FEEDING 4 THE NATION’S FUTURE LEADERS iv. Consensus is achieved on the status of school feeding against the quality standards; v. An initial road map for sustainable school feeding is developed; vi. WFP’s new policy for sustainable school feeding is known to stakeholders. This report summarises the conference discussions. Starting with a shared assessment of the Ghana school feeding programme against agreed quality standards for sustainable school feeding, participants identified the achievements, challenges and shortcomings and elaborated an initial road map for sustainable school feeding in Ghana. This roadmap would be shared with decision makers of the Government to be further developed in consultation with its key partners. The conference encouraged stronger coordination and collaboration needed amongst the various stakeholders to move the school feeding programme forward. Eighty participants from the Government of Ghana (at central, provincial and district levels) and development partners attended. Conclusions There was a general consensus on the following: ACHIEVEMENTS Ghana School Feeding Program is designed as a social safety net with multiple benefits; has strong government commitment through multi-year funding; has had tangible benefits on attendance and enrolment; has met its scale up objectives. In that sense, Ghana School Feeding Program is a model for other countries in the region to learn from. CHALLENGES In a budget constrained environment the government needs to make difficult decisions to enhance effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability; To achieve multi-sector objectives, multi-sector inputs are needed; The recurrent expenditure of GSFP is high and there are opportunities for cost containment; Increased enrolment needs to be matched by the provision of additional education infrastructure. FEEDING 5 THE NATION’S FUTURE LEADERS SHORTCOMINGS The crucial link of the GSFP with the local farmer is quite weak; District level ownership and coordination has not been functioning as efficiently as required; Analysis of the targeting performance of school feeding program using various approaches reveals poor targeting. Recommendations The Conference recommended the following: POLICY AND FUNDING (i) Develop a national policy for school feeding ensuring linkages are made with existing sector policies (ii) Develop a resource mobilization strategy to bring more partners on board (iii) Communicate to the different government sectors engaged in the GSFP to budget at provincial and district levels for complimentary inputs in their annual budget plans NEEDS BASED, COST-EFFECTIVE QUALITY PROGRAMME DESIGN (i) Revalidate the project’s objectives on nutrition (ii) Review the targeting and develop a plan to strengthen it using poverty indicators to refocus available resources on the most needy areas (iii) Develop a sustainability strategy for less needy areas to be implemented over a certain period of time (iv) Propose clear guidelines with a range of local menus with a defined nutritional value that can be monitored (v) Systemize deworming in high prevalence areas and define a coordinated mechanism to ensure deworming is carried out twice per year in all GSFP schools INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENT FOR IMPLEMENTATION (i) Review and strengthen the M&E system (ii) Develop a training plan for GSFP central staff (iii) Strengthen capacity at district and school level (iv) Ensure middle / senior level staff is appointed as focal person at district level (v) Strengthen SICs through capacity building, sensitization and orientation on programme and role. Consider incorporating SIC mandate into that of SMC since they have the same members FEEDING 6 THE NATION’S FUTURE LEADERS COORDINATION (i) Continually sensitize key actors and stakeholders at all levels (ii) Draw joint annual and quarterly action plans with inputs from partner ministries and stakeholders (iii) Reinforce linkages in policy documents through a stakeholder forum to define roles, responsibilities and to develop an operational manual for how stakeholders should interact LOCAL PRODUCTION AND COMMUNITY (i) Initially encourage caterers to buy from local farmers, and put in place technical support and a credit system for smallholder farmers (ii) Eventually mandate that caterers buy a fixed percentage from local farmers when production capacity is sufficient and efficient (iii) Create a code of practice for caterers, increase in M&E efforts and training for cooks Way forward As a fist step, the Government of Ghana should further assess the