1
6
thEVENT OF THE AFRICAN DAY OF SCHOOL FEEDING
THEME:
"Harnessing Africa traditional knowledge and food to
support sustainable school feeding programmes and
systems during COVID-19 response and beyond"
25TH FEBRUARY -1ST MARCH 2021
CONCEPT NOTE
AFRICAN UNION
UNION AFRICAINE
UNIÃO AFRICANA
Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA P. O. Box 3243 Tele: +251-115 517 700 Fax: +251-11-5 517844
Website:
www.au.int
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INTRODUCTION
This concept note proposes a three-day event for the 6th African Day of School Feeding (ADSF) continental
commemoration that will feature: (i) Day 1 Technical discussions; (ii) Day 2 High-level dialogue session with the members of the AU's Permanent Representative Committee; (iii) Day 3 ADSF Celebrations with a high-level ministerial engagement.
The 6th ADSF will be held virtuallyon 25-26 February and 1st March 2021 and will be guided by the theme
"Harnessing Africa traditional knowledge and food to support sustainable school feeding programmes and systems during COVID-19 response and beyond."
The ADSF Celebration provides a key opportunity to provide a strong statement from Africa on its commitment to scale up Home Grown School Feeding to promote African culture and local food systems in favour of children’s health and nutrition. The resulting commitments can be leveraged in 2021 to advocate at global discussions, such as the Food System Summit to increase visibility and support for African Member States.
The concept note outlines this year's ADSF theme, the objectives of the 6th ADSF and a proposed agenda.
It begins by providing a context to: (i) the AU's commitment towards home-grown school feeding; (ii) the need to leverage HGSF to promote African culture and local food systems; and the continental impact of COVID-19 to the health, nutrition and education of school-age children.
BACKGROUND
AU's commitment to home gown school feeding
As part of its efforts to operationalise Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want, the African Union (AU), has developed and adopted the Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2016-25 (CESA 16-25)1- a continental
domestication of SDG4; and the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). Both CAADP and CESA 16-25 support home-grown school feeding (HGSF) programmes as a common continental priority. Moreover, the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa 2024 complements both frameworks as it aims to address nutrition, food security and health through scientific research and innovation. The Malabo Declaration of 2014, adopted by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, renewed the political commitment towards CAADP to end hunger in Africa by 2025, including utilising HGSF to support local and rural economies.
These policy frameworks highlight school feeding programmes as a multi-sectoral tool to build human capital by improving the health, nutrition and well-being of school children and enhancing educational outcomes, but also to boost local economies, support rural and agricultural development, strengthen local food systems and alleviate poverty by providing smallholder farmers a predictable outlet for their products and offering business or employment opportunities across the supply chain. HGSF programmes contribute to achieving the goals of CESA 16-25 and CAADP to realise the aspirations of Agenda 2063, Agenda 2030, and achieving a world with Zero Hunger.
During the 2016 ordinary session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, a decision2 was
passed recognizing the importance of HGSF to access education, educational outcomes and to support local and rural economies. As per the decision, the Assembly called for: (i) the establishment of a multi-disciplinary technical committee (the School Feeding Cluster); (ii) the commemoration of the 1st March as
1 CESA 16-25 represents the continent’s aim of having a continental education strategy that is aligned to not only the SDGs, particularly SDG 4, but is also the supporting policy framework document that articulates how Agenda 2063 aim of strengthening education on the continent will be advanced over the next decade.
2 See Assembly, Decision on the Specialized Technical Committees, AU Doc. Assembly/AU/Dec. 589 (XXVI) (31
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the African Day of School Feeding (ADSF); (iii) regular updates on school feeding programmes by the AUCs and (iv) promote South-South cooperation on HGSF among member states.The establishment of the African Day of School Feeding by AU Heads of State and Government demonstrates the value placed on this intervention at the highest political level of the AU. With the adoption of the 2016 AU decision on HGSF, over the last few years, several Member States have improved their School Feeding programmes and increased the sourcing of local foods for school meals,
The ADSF continental commemoration has been employed to reinforce and strengthen political will for HGSF on the continent, promote knowledge sharing to encourage pro-HGSF policies, strategies and practices and raise awareness on HGSF among civil society and the broader public. To date, there have been 5 continental commemorations of the ADSF:
1. ADSF 2016: Held in Niamey, Niger in March 2016 under the theme: Home-Grown School Feeding - a conduit for Africa's Sustainable Development;
2. ADSF 2017: Held in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo in March 2017 under the theme: Home Grown School Feeding: Investment in Youth and Children for Harnessing the Demographic Dividends; 3. ADSF 2018: Held in Harare, Zimbabwe-Harare in March 2018 under the theme: Realizing the
African Child's Full Potential through Effective Home-Grown School Feeding;
4. ADSF 2019: Held in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire under the theme: Investing in Home-Grown School feeding for Achieving Zero Hunger, Sustaining Inclusive education for all Including Refugees, Returns, and Displaced Persons in Africa;
5. ADSF 2020: Initially, the commemorations were supposed to be held in N'Djamena, Chad in 2020, but due to COVID-19 pandemic, the continental commemoration took place virtually under the theme: Home-Grown School Feeding towards Creating Conducive Environment for Africa's Development and Silencing the Guns'
Past continental commemorations of the ADSF have been crucial in continuing to build the political support for HGSF and raising awareness among public officials and the broader public. While all these elements, especially strengthening political support for HGSF, are important and should be core elements of the 6th
ADSF, there is also a need to maximise the convening moment of the ADSF to leverage and advance past AU commitments by translating them into concrete actions to be taken by member states.
AU member states will be critical in driving the realisation of these commitments. The critical juncture of the COVID-19 pandemic and this year's AU theme of the year, Year of the Arts, Culture And Heritage, makes it more imperative that past AU commitments on HGSF be translated into actionable steps that member states can take to move this agenda forward at the country-level.
Promoting African culture and local food systems through HGSF
Aspiration 5 of Agenda 2063 envisions an Africa with a strong cultural identity, common heritage, shared values and ethics. This calls for an African cultural renaissance which is pre-eminent, and that inculcates the spirit of Pan Africanism, tapping Africa's rich heritage and culture. Food is an important part of culture. Traditional cuisine is passed down from one generation to the next. It also operates as an expression of cultural identity.
Africa has a rich culinary heritage. However, today’s food systems and policies are too focused on food quantity and not enough on quality, leaving many indigenous and traditional food crops at the margins of current food systems.3 Lifestyle changes and an increase in processed goods are also contributing to
multiple forms of malnutrition on the continent, including the double burden of malnutrition.
3 FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2020. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020.
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In many countries the majority of the population cannot afford nutritious foods: in certain regions of Ghana, Madagascar and Mozambique, more than 70 percent of households cannot afford a nutritious diet.4 In low-and middle-income countries, over half of the young women and adolescent girls are not meeting their micronutrient needs. The decrease in fresh foods and the increase in heavily marketed and cheap processed foods has created a global epidemic of over nutrition. The prevalence rates of overweight and obesity are increasing in every region of the world and most rapidly in low- and middle-income countries. In 2014, the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems recommended the implementation of policies across the food system to reduce undernutrition and growing overweight, obesity and other diet-related non-communicable diseases. Some of the policy recommendations are: making better use of existing public food distribution programmes such as school feeding programmes, ensuring that they are agriculture-supportive and nutrition-sensitive; integrating nutrition education into all available national services reaching consumers; expanding agriculture-supportive targeted social protection programmes; and improving the diets of adolescent girls and adult women as a priority.
It is at school that children can learn to make healthy, local and affordable food choices consistent with optimal nutrition outcome and representing their traditional cuisine. The cultural element of school feeding programmes is expressed through its ingredients, the methods of preparation, preservation techniques, cooking and the variety and locality of foods eaten. HGSF programmes can serve as a vehicle for AU member states to: (i) strengthen local food systems, including those of indigenous and traditional food crops; (ii) provide smallholder farmers with a reliable outlet for indigenous and traditional food crops; and (iii) promote Africa's diverse culture and culinary heritage through school meal menus that include traditional foods.
Continental impact of COVID-19 on school-age children's health and nutritional well-being and education
Before the pandemic, over 65 million children across the African continent were receiving school feeding. In 39 countries across the African continent governments were financing and managing national school feeding programmes. These increasingly successful programmes were dealt a blow by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020. Some 297 million students5 were unable to attend classes, and 65
million children and adolescents (with 48 per cent of them being girls) missed out on school meals. For millions of African children, a lack of daily school meals has resulted in increased hunger, with a negative impact on their health and nutrition. Some of these children will never recover from school closures. The poorest will miss years of schooling, some will never come back – like girls and adolescents. Once the crisis subsides and recovery begins, the loss of livelihoods and income affects most parents' decision-making when it comes to the continuation of their children's education. For millions of parents, the hardships brought on by the pandemic, and the uncertainty of the future, may discourage them from sending children, particularly girls, back to school; and instead, push them to perform work.
School systems need to reopen safely as soon as possible and access to school feeding needs to be restored as a priority. School health and nutrition programmes mitigate hunger and serve as a powerful incentive for children to return to school. This is especially true for the most vulnerable children, who rely most on school meals and for whom home-schooling is least available. Reinstating HGSF programmes will also support local economies, particularly small/holder farmers and personnel supporting the delivery and production of meals.
THE 6
thADSF CONTINENTAL COMMEMORATION
4 Global Nutrition Report 2018. Available at: https://globalnutritionreport.org/reports/global-nutrition-report-2018/ 5 See https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/may-2020/coronavirus/africa-schools-are-closed-learning-goes
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Theme of the 6th ADSF
In recognition of the importance of culture, arts and heritage in promoting the objectives of Agenda 2063, particularly Aspiration 5 that looks to realise an Africa with a strong cultural identity, common heritage, shared values and ethics, the AU Heads of State and Government declared the AU theme of the year for 2021 as the Year of the Arts, Culture And Heritage.
Cognisant of the AU theme of 2021 and in light of COVID-19, this year's ADSF provides an opportunity to discuss the need to reinstate leverage home-grown school feeding to: (i) promote African local and traditional food systems and meals among children, their parents and broader society; (ii) support the livelihoods of vulnerable smallholder farmers with a special focus on those engaged in the production of traditional food crops; and (iii) safeguard the health and nutrition of children and promote their re-enrolment. In this respect, it was proposed that the theme of the 6th African Day of School Feeding is "Harnessing Africa traditional knowledge and food to support sustainable school feeding programmes and systems during COVID-19 response and beyond”.
Objectives of the 6th ADSF
Overall objective
:
Translate AU commitments into concrete actions to be taken by AU member states topromote HGSF, including actions to utilise school feeding programmes to respond to the immediate health, nutrition and education needs of children and promote local food systems and Africa’s rich culinary heritage. Specific objectives include
Take stock of the progress of ongoing initiatives at the continental, regional, and national levels in implementing HGSF programmes, among others by presenting the findings of the 2019-2020 biennial report.
Promote Africa’s diverse food culture through HGSF programmes that incorporate local and traditional food are agriculture-supportive and nutrition-sensitive.
Promote knowledge and good practices sharing, highlighting potential dividends and progress made with respect to HGSF on the continent.
Support member states to respond to the COVID 19 crisis by sharing lessons learned, best practices and guidance.
Proposed Agenda
A preliminary agenda is provided below for the proposed three-day 6th ADSF continental
commemorations. A separate, more detailed and fleshed out concept note for each of the days, including a draft programme, will be provided subject to the approval of this consolidated concept note. Day 1 – 25 February 2021, 13:00 – 16:00 pm (Addis time)
Technical/Thematic Discussion
Technical discussions will help identify concrete actions that AU member states can take forward to address the immediate needs of school-age children during the COVID-19 pandemic and promote African culture by strengthening local food systems and promoting Africa's rich and diverse culinary heritage through HGSF.
Invitees:
National technical officials: Technical experts on school feeding from the ministry of education or other relevant ministries (heads of departments/PS level);
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Development Partners: WFP, FAO, UNICEF, UNESCO, WHO, AfDB (including African Leaders forNutrition Secretariat), key donors;
Civil Society: NGOs implementing school feeding programmes on the continent and African civil society actors working on promoting African culture and food;
Objectives:
Identify and recommend key actions to use school feeding programmes to strengthen local food systems such that foods are locally sourced and prepared to preserve and promote Africa's culinary heritage and provide school children with healthy, accessible and nutritious food.
Identify and recommend key actions to be taken to ensure the health and nutrition of vulnerable school-age children during COVID-19; and
Technical discussions may explore the following topics:
Home-grown school feeding a game changer for more sustainable food systems: The purpose here is to review continental achievements and arrive at a few recommendations that will help accelerate national implementation of AU commitments on home-grown school feeding, including discussions on how to integrate it into local food systems.
AUC, AUDA-NEPAD and development partner support to accelerate member state implementation of past AU commitments: The purpose here is to stimulate dialogue between AU member states, the AUC, AUDA-NEPAD and development partners, particularly those that are members of the School Feeding Cluster (WFP, FAO, UNICEF, UNESCO), on how they could support AU member states in accelerating the implementation of AU commitments on HGSF.
Impact of COVID-19 on the health and nutrition of school children: The purpose of the discussion is to formulate key recommendations from each of the five AU regions that may be presented for incorporation into a draft outcome document of the ministerial meeting. These recommendations can be premised on past AU commitments and are meant to galvanize national actions to respond to the detrimental impact that COVID-19 has had on the health and nutrition of school-age children and actions to respond to their needs in the context of the reopening of schools.
Format: Virtual 3 hours meeting including opening by HE Sarah Anyang Agbor, HRST Commissioner and simultaneous technical working group sessions.
Outcome: Five Technical recommendations from the discussions to be incorporated into the draft ministerial outcome document.
Day 2 – 26 February 2021, 10:00 – 11:30 pm (Addis time) Closed door High-Level PRC Dialogue
Given the multi-sectoral nature of the home-grown school feeding programmes and the need to translate AU commitments to country-level actions, the role of the AU's Permanent Representatives and the Permanent Representative Committee (PRC) cannot be overlooked.
Permanent Representatives have a dual responsibility to deliver goods for their member states and improve continental prospects by advancing Agenda 2063. These two objectives complement each other and are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, the PRC serves as the interface between AU member states and other organs of the AU, such as the AUC. While the monitoring of the implementation of the AU commitments is under the mandate of the Specialised Technical Committees, the PRC can nonetheless serve as a bridge connecting AU commitments to national actions with their respective national governments, thereby facilitating their implementation.
The Permanent Representatives can in collaboration with the STCs and AUC play a critical role in helping to: (i) facilitate member state reporting on their school feeding programmes; (ii) engender inter-ministerial
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cooperation within their member states for national actions and to showcase national efforts at AU events or workshops on HGSF; and (iii) advocate for the promotion of HGSF to their national capitals.Invitees:
AU Permanent Representatives and their missions, high-level representatives, UN agencies and partner governments.
Objectives:
As part of the advocacy efforts of the School Feeding Cluster the High-level African PRC Dialogue aims to: Seek the PRC's support to engage their respective member states to initiate actions that, in the
context of COVID-19-induced school closures, safeguards Africa's human capital through government-led interventions that address the immediate health, nutritional and educational needs of children and promote their re-enrolment;
Foster relationships with Permanent Representatives of AU member states and help develop AU member state champions that work with the School Feeding Cluster, STCs and AUC to build the long-term SHN agenda within the AU and in their respective member states.
Format: Virtual 1,5 hours meeting, including high level panellists’ statements – closed doors.
Outcome: PRC members express in a joint communique support for the HGSF and commit to helping advance the agenda both within the AU and in their national capitals.
Day 3 – 01 March 2021, 13:00 – 16:00 pm (Addis time) ADSF Celebrations and Ministerial Meeting
Celebration of the African Day of School Feeding including presentation of the State of School Feeding in Africa and Ministerial Session.
Invitees:
National representatives: Ministers of Education, Agriculture and Development;
AU Commission: Commissioners DHRST, DSA, DREA, AUDA-NEPAD; Development Partners: Principals of WFP, FAO, UNICEF, UNESCO, WHO, AfDB (including African Leaders for Nutrition Secretariat), key donors;
Civil Society: NGOs implementing school feeding programmes on the continent and African civil society actors working on promoting African culture and food;
Objectives:
Highlight commitment of Member States towards scaling up HGSF in the continent,
to
strengthen local food systems and ensure children’s health and nutrition,
particularly in response to COVID 19. Presentation of the 2019-2020 progress report on Home Grown School Feeding
Format: Virtual 3 hours celebration – open to the public – including presentation of the biannual report on the state of school feeding in Africa, reporting on the technical and political commitments of the first two days and ministerial session.
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Outcome: Final communique summarising all technical recommendations, acknowledging the AU-PRC level commitment and expressing national commitment to take forward the recommendations/actions outlined in the communique.PARTICIPANTS
Participants for the three-day event are expected to comprise 150 to 200 individuals, including Ministers and experts from government institutions of AU Member States, AU Commission, the AUDA- NEPAD, Regional Economic Communities (RECs), UN Agencies, multilateral agencies, international financial institutions, Civil Society Organizations (CSO), donor agencies, academic and research institutions, other professional associations and individual experts.
DATES AND VENUE
This three-day event will take place virtually, and the zoom link will be shared ahead of the meeting. It will take place from 25-26 February and 1st March 2021.
LANGUAGES OF WORK
The meeting will be conducted in English and French.
