In Côte d’Ivoire, two thirds of primary schools have no canteen. Where canteens do exist, children only get a school meal for around 33 days out of a 120-day school year.
Jérôme Ayékoé, Director of School Canteens at the Ministry of National Education, Literacy and Technical Education, acknowledges there’s a shortfall, and that operating days are still too few. But something is shifting. Five years ago, that number was 18 days. And the word circulating in ministry corridors and among international partners is the same: priority.
“The provision of school meals has truly become a national priority,” says Séverine Giroud of the World Food Program. It’s easy to see why. A school meal helps to keep kids in class, lifts grades, cuts dropout rates, and helps to ease the budget of families for whom every meal is a calculation. When a child eats at school, that’s one less meal a struggling household has to find. Sometimes that’s a powerful enough incentive for keeping a child in school, helping to curb child labour and even early marriage.
With the support of the CLEF Coalition, 126 schools in two of the country’s most food-insecure regions have been piloting a new model, one designed to be affordable, lasting, and eventually national. The goal by 2030: 60% of public primary school children eating a hot, balanced meal for at least 80 days a year.
What makes the model different is where the food comes from. Rather than relying on distant supply chains, the programme sources from local cooperatives, mostly women led, who have been trained by the national rural development agency in better growing techniques, food security, and nutrition. The logic is circular: better harvests mean better-supplied canteens; better-supplied canteens mean children who can concentrate and stay in school.
“Each harvest that is shared feeds children and strengthens communities. By improving their production, these groups can support school canteens more broadly while also strengthening their own incomes,” says the agency’s regional director, Issoufou Dosso.
CLEF is a commitment to:
- Get more children into school.
- Make sure children learn at school.
- Achieve impact at scale; we want to make a difference in the lives of more than 4 million children by 2027.
CLEF is financed by a combination of funds committed by the Government of Côte d’Ivoire, the cocoa and chocolate industry, and philanthropic organisations.
See more in the video below:
