Ensuring education through a crisis: how school-feeding programmes give children ‘more than just a meal’

Among their many impacts, slow-onset hazards such as drought have particular effects on children. Hunger can force them to stay at home rather than attend school, and this disruption to their education increases a number of risks. In such contexts, school-feeding programmes have emerged as a crucial anticipatory action, helping to mitigate these risks by increasing school attendance.

Ensuring that children remain in school by providing meals consistently has many positive impacts:

• It improves their nutrition and overall well-being.
• It reduces protection risks: when children have to stay home due to hunger, they are more vulnerable to child labour, early marriage, and sexual and gender-based violence.
• It improves their learning outcomes by reducing disruptions to their education.

School-feeding programmes also have longer-term health benefits; for example, they help to counter malnutrition, which affects children’s cognitive development. They can also enhance children’s resilience to future shocks by creating opportunities to deliver child-friendly messages on nutrition, hygiene and well-being, while fostering a sense of stability and empowerment. This can help children develop positive coping mechanisms and reduce the risk of resorting to harmful survival strategies.

The Zimbabwe Red Cross Society’s approach: more than just a meal

Zimbabwe has been increasingly affected by El Niño-driven droughts in recent years. In Binga District, chronic food shortages have resulted in high school-dropout rates and heightened protection risks for children. In response, the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society (ZRCS) activated its Early Action Protocol (EAP) for Drought in October 2023 in Binga District.

The activation of the EAP followed a phased approach. After the first trigger was reached in October 2023, based on warnings of an impending drought, the ZRCS distributed drought-tolerant seeds, and provided deworming medicines for livestock while also supporting deworming activities, with support from the Department of Veterinary Services. There were also sensitization efforts, led by health coordinators, which educated children about water conservation, hygiene practices and disease prevention, particularly the risks of cholera and other illnesses linked to water shortages.

As food insecurity worsened, the second trigger for the EAP was reached in September 2024. At this point, the ZRCS initiated its school-feeding programme, alongside further hygiene promotion. These actions benefitted 5,378 children across 11 primary schools and the impacts were immediate:

• Attendance increased from 74 per cent to over 90 per cent.
• Teachers noted improvements in concentration and participation, reinforcing the link between nutrition, education and protection.
• Parents benefitted by having their children in school; this meant they could continue their daily activities knowing that their children were in a safe environment and would receive at least one meal a day.

Listening to children during the design stage

The school-feeding programme was designed through focus group discussions with children (held separately from adults), alongside consultations with other key stakeholders. These discussions confirmed that food insecurity increases children’s vulnerability, forcing many into high-risk coping mechanisms.

As Paul Moyo, the disaster management coordinator at the ZRCS, explains, this validated the rationale behind selecting this action: “We chose school feeding as an anticipatory action because we saw how food insecurity was forcing children out of school, with many married early or sent to work. The feeding programme was not just about nutrition; it was a way to keep children in school, protect them, and give them a chance for a better future.”

School-feeding programmes around the world

School-feeding programmes operate elsewhere in Africa. In Ethiopia, this approach has been combined with child safeguarding initiatives to prevent child labour and early marriage during times of food insecurity. In Somalia, it supports the continuity of education by providing emergency school meals alongside other protection interventions.

Other organizations also include school feeding as a crucial component of broader anticipatory actions for education. The World Food Programme runs school-feeding initiatives in over 60 countries, linking meals to early warning systems to trigger pre-emptive interventions. Save the Children has developed child-centred early warning systems that incorporate complementary school-based preparedness interventions (e.g., early warnings, rapid response mechanisms, safe learning spaces) to help children remain in school during crises. And World Vision has integrated feeding programmes within broader child protection measures.

Can school feeding work for rapid-onset disasters?

While school feeding is typically used for slow-onset hazards, it can also be adapted for rapid-onset disasters – despite the much shorter lead times between a forecast and the hazard striking. Often these activities provide critical early relief post-disaster, but the preparation begins beforehand, as Paul Moyo clarifies: “Setting up a school-feeding programme doesn’t take as long as people [might] think – the key is to have contracts in place with suppliers. When a rapid-onset disaster is forecast, you simply activate these contracts and deploy pre-positioned supplies, like utensils and non-perishable food items. This way, meals can be delivered quickly and efficiently. The trick is to plan ahead so that when we know a disaster is coming, the system is already in place.”

Beyond school-feeding programmes: maintaining education during a crisis

School-feeding programmes are just one of the ways in which anticipatory action can safeguard children’s right to a safe and continuous education during crises. Other measures include:

• emergency education grants or cash transfers to help families cover school costs
• pre-positioning learning materials so education can resume quickly if people are displaced
• safe learning spaces where children can maintain their routine and study during a disaster
• training teachers in crisis response to ensure education systems are resilient.

Anticipatory action initiatives should incorporate a range of these strategies to ensure that education remains a priority when a disaster strikes. To scale up and sustain these initiatives, anticipatory action must be embedded within national strategies – for both education and disaster risk reduction – and supported through funding mechanisms that allow for early interventions. At the same time, anticipatory action frameworks should prioritize education-based actions, so that humanitarian actors and governments can ensure that children remain safe, educated and well-nourished – regardless of the crises they face.