active· Education· Health

Enhancing Nepal’s Mid-Day Meals Programme through integrating a sustainable, planet-friendly Home-Grown School Feeding Approach

The purpose of the funding is to strengthen school meals in Nepal by developing a model for locally produced, nutritious and climate-friendly school meals in 10 municipalities in the provinces of Sudurpashchim and Karnali. The objectives are children's right to healthy food and better learning outcomes, improved income for small farmers and the introduction of climate-sustainable and energy-efficient solutions in school kitchens. They support Nepal's national development policy for locally produced school meals and the priorities of Finland's development policy. At the moment many school meals are unhealthy and dependent on long supply chains. Local governments lack the competence and resources to organise meals in a way that supports the local economy and the nutrition of schoolchildren. Finland's funding will strengthen the capacity of municipalities, create effective supply chains and introduce climate-friendly school kitchen solutions, such as energy-efficient stoves and renewable energy applications. As immediate results, 427 schools will move to a home-made school meal model, 10 climate resilient school kitchens will be built, 50 improved cooking stoves will be installed and teachers, cooks and other local actors will be trained. In addition, 85 mothers' groups and 40 farmer groups will be strengthened, agreement models will be created between schools and cooperatives, and nutrition communications will be introduced. The cooperation municipalities have been selected to overlap with the municipalities of Finland's bilateral Climate change in municipalities project. In this way, the Reras project can benefit from the synergies created by the bilateral project, especially in connection with value chains related to municipal cooperation and school meals. About 30,000 pupils, their families, local small farmers (70% of whom are women) and school communities benefit from the project. At the national level, Finland strengthens its profile as a global advocate of the school meals theme and makes use of the new thematic task of the school meal ambassador to increase visibility. The project also supports Finland's climate and equality objectives. UNDP and WFP are responsible for the implementation in cooperation with the local governments. Finland participates in the project's steering group and policy dialogue within the framework of sector support of education (SESP). The planned funding period is 2026-2027, and Finland's share is EUR 620 000.