Support to School Health and Nutrition

The project will aim to improve the health and nutrition of children in Burkina Faso the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Niger through school-based interventions. This project will expand on the original project in South Sudan and Somalia. In response to the COVID-19 crisis and in recognition that partnerships are needed to meet the health and nutrition needs of children the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) launched an initiative to strengthen their partnership at the global level and on the ground. Globally the partnership seeks to reach 35 million children in 30 fragile and low-income countries with an integrated package of school health and nutrition services. The current project seeks to support WFP’s and UNICEF’s interventions assisting the Governments of the three countries to reopen schools safely and to incentivise the most vulnerable children particularly girls to return to school safely where they can receive essential health and nutrition support. As schools reopen this project is designed to prioritize school meal programmes with innovative delivery systems that can be adapted to the COVID 19 context to ensure that households can access nutritious foods. WFP and UNICEF have developed detailed country plans in Burkina Faso the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Niger to provide an integrated suite of activities to support children’s well-being health and nutrition. These include school feeding take home rations micronutrient supplementation community sensitization water hygiene and sanitation (WASH) and education assistance for the most vulnerable and crisis affected children.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased access to nutritious food and improved health by providing school meals take-home rations micronutrient supplementation and deworming for girls and boys; (2) improved access to a healthier and adequate learning environment (including COVID-19 mitigation measures) for girls and boys; (3) increased access to adequate sanitation and hygiene services for girls and boys especially adolescent girls; (4) trained teachers on school health and nutrition hygiene and the menstrual hygiene movement COVID-19 mitigation measures and psychosocial support with a focus on adolescent girls; (5) sensitized target communities including adolescent boys and girls parents teachers and local traditional authorities and leaders on girls’ education nutrition social and health rights and on gender-based violence (GBV); and (6) improved awareness among target groups in the communities on girls’ education knowledge nutrition health and reproductive health and on GBV.