A new initiative took place by the United Nations (UN). Even they launched a project on Monday by the two UN agencies to improve the diet of school children by supporting the development of nutrition standards for school meal programmes.
As per the UN partner, it would be beneficial to provide meals to schools in many countries, and it would play a significant portion of children’s diets. At the same time, it is crucial that they directly contribute to nutrition needs.
“Through this extensive toolkit and technical support to improve school meals, the broader school food environments and procurement processes from local food systems FAO aim to support governments and institutions in order to provide healthy food to children’s, therefore marking a step forward towards ensuring their Right to Food, said Nancy Aburto, Deputy Director of the agency’s Food and Nutrition Division.
The partners also plan to guide schools to execute hands-on food education strategies. They will also add the training on how to use school meal menus as learning material in classrooms.
Other innovations will also be promoted, such as imposing restrictions on sugary beverages on school premises.
In many countries, school meals represent a significant portion of children's daily dietary intake.
A new project launched by @FAO and @WFP aims to further improve nutrition standards for school meals. 🥗 https://t.co/uFVwMt0IIy
— United Nations (@UN) February 22, 2022
Furthermore, national bodies will be supported to integrate the new nutrition standards into legislation.
The ownership of the Community is another key part of the project, the UN agencies added, including strengthening mechanisms where students and parents can report non-compliance with nutrition standards.
According to the ‘Carmen Burbano’ Director of the School-based Programmes Division at WFP, “We have an international consensus now around the need for school meals and its benefits to numerous sectors. School meals go far beyond the plate of food – they can impact education, nutrition, health, agriculture and food systems.
The process and the guidelines of the packages will be piloted in Cambodia and Ghana, Africa. They will then be adjusted and finalized through territorial and global workshops.
. Even they launched a project on Monday by the two UN agencies){kind=link}