School feeding programme to reach 700 000 learners

Namibia’s Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP) pilot is being transitioned to scale nationwide, with the target of now extending nutritious meals to over 700 000 learners across all local schools.

**Report **

According to the latest World Food Programme (WFP) country report, government, through the ministry of education, arts and culture, is advancing a national school feeding strategy that will ensure that all Namibian learners have access to healthy, decent meals daily.

Namibia’s current broader national school feeding programme reaches approximately 500 000 learners or 86% of school-age children across all 14 regions.

The latest feeding strategy is being modelled against those of Zambia and Rwanda, which both emerged as regional leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa by transforming their home-grown school feeding initiatives into highly structured, national delivery systems.

**Link **

By linking education directly to local agricultural supply chains, Zambia and Rwanda use school meals to boost student retention while driving local economic development.

In Rwanda, their school feeding programme is scaled nationwide from pre-primary up to secondary education across all districts, while in Zambia, theirs has reached over 4.6 million learners across 106 districts, with a long-term target of reaching 6.6 million learners.

For Namibia, the enhanced school feeding programme will see the country shifting from its traditional model towards a more decentralised system that links public schools with local agriculture businesses and related ventures.

Rather than providing the standard fortified maize blend to learners, the enhanced home-grown model will integrate fresh produce, vegetables, and protein (like eggs and poultry) sourced directly from the local communities.

**Sourcing **

By sourcing fresh produce directly from local smallholder farmers and building school-based agricultural infrastructure, the initiative aims to simultaneously curb childhood malnutrition and uplift rural economies. “Key next steps include securing Cabinet endorsement, strengthening cross-sectoral governance through enhanced senior-level representation, developing a home-grown school feeding programme-aligned early childhood development feeding model, and advancing Namibia’s School Meals Coalition commitments to support long-term sustainability and national ownership,” reads the WFP report.

The ministry has also introduced the Namibia School Feeding Information System (NaSIS), a platform that monitors attendance, automates electronic meal vouchers, and tracks food stock levels in real time to prevent the spoilage issues that plagued earlier models.

And organisations like the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN) are rolling out localised food systems, such as greenhouses, poultry units, and irrigation systems, at rural schools across Kavango East, Kavango West, and Ohangwena to ensure the constant supply of eggs and diverse veggies.

**Effective **

Between the months of August and September, more than 51 000 children received nutritious meals through various Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres countrywide, helping protect nutrition, learning and healthy development during the critical early years. This was to complement the broader national school feeding programme.

“WFP, alongside the government, UNICEF and European Union Technical Assistance, supported consultations to advance Namibia’s Early Childhood Development (ECD) reform agenda and prepare for the rollout of the Family-Based ECD programme for children aged 0–2 years. The engagements strengthened stakeholder support for expanding quality ECD services in rural and underserved communities and reinforced the importance of nutrition, early learning, responsive caregiving and child protection during the first 1 000 days,” the report highlights.

Key recommendations in the report focused on strengthening caregiver and father engagement, promoting disability inclusion and safeguarding, improving referrals to essential services, and expanding community outreach, with findings informing programme scale-up ahead of the ECD sector transition in 2027.

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