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Lebanon: School Meals Programme

Countries
Lebanon
Sources
WFP
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WFP’s school meals programme acts as a safety net for vulnerable Lebanese and Syrian refugee children and their families

Only 30 percent of Lebanese school-aged children attend public schools, and more than half of the refugee children are unable to pursue their primary education due to economic hardships. WFP’s intervention through the school feeding programme aims to address the critical issue of limited primary education for Lebanese and Syrian children while preventing short-term hunger and improving children’s food consumption.
For this, WFP partnered with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) in 2016 to develop a school snacks programme with three components: the provision of nutritious daily school snacks, nutrition education, and health and nutrition summer camps.
However, due to prolonged school closures starting 2020 and throughout the whole 2020-2021 academic year, the school meals programme quickly adapted to meet the growing food needs of the most vulnerable Lebanese and Syrian families.

TAKE-HOME RATIONS: ADAPTING TO COVID-19

Instead of school snacks, WFP provided in-kind food parcels to the families of children attending public schools to help mitigate the impact of Covid-19 and the economic crisis and to maintain families’ links with schools and encourage them to keep their children enrolled.

Through the distribution of take-home rations, WFP ensures that students as well as their families continue to receive WFP assistance in light of the depreciation of the local currency and increase in food prices. By mid2021, WFP was able to expand assistance to reach 134,000 beneficiaries through food parcels which covered 40 percent of the monthly needs of a family of five. Parcels are distributed on a monthly basis and consist of 30 kg of dry food (rice, pasta, burghul, lentils, beans, oil, sugar, and salt).

Given that the assistance modality was adjusted following school closures, monitoring of the main outcome under this activity (retention and drop-out rates) was not possible. Instead, rigorous process monitoring for distributions was conducted through onsite visits and post-distribution phone calls to ensure that households received assistance in a safe and dignified manner and to evaluate their satisfaction and feedback.

As Lebanon continues to face multiple crises with heavy repercussions on education and security, the distribution of take-home rations will continue till the end of the school year 2020-2021 and while many schools remain closed, operate for condensed hours with no breaks, or use a blended learning approach. WFP will continue to work with MEHE on adapting programmes and expanding support to vulnerable students and their families.