Stakeholders in the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), have lauded the Federal Governmenton for the effective implementation and expansion of NHSGFP to achieve its desired objectives.
They made the commendation at a two-day training on “Optimising School Meal menus”, using SMP Plus (Plus School Menus Tool) for states focal persons and managers from the six geopolitical zones in Abuja, Thursday.
The training was organised by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development in collaboration with the UN World Food Programme (WFP).
The stakeholders observed that the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, through its National Social Investments Programme (NSIP), had encouraged many children to enroll into school.
Adamawa Focal Person North East, Mrs Mary Yuwadi said the school feeding programme had increased enrollment in the state as the children received their breakfast daily.
Yuwadi said that those children, who had dropped out of school, were back to school because they were encouraged by the meal given in the school.
“Apart from that, the meal is very nutritious because we give them balanced diet and that has increased their nutrition.
“So, we want the government to continue with the school feeding programme and also appeal that some of the schools that are not included in the programme should be added,” she said.
Programme Manager, NSIP, Kano, Baba Zubair noted that the school feeding helped a lot in enrolment of pupils into primary school, saying “also, the economic benefits are so much that every part of our economy benefits from it because whenever there is school feeding, the farmers will produce.
“The problem we are facing is that most good programmes like this do not continue once another government comes.
“It will strike it down but something like this should be sustained because the results are there.
“In Kano, we have the largest number of school pupils that are benefiting from this, currently we are feeding over 1.2 million children between primary one and three,” Zubair said.
On his part, the Enugu State Programme Manager, NHGSFP,  Ifeanyi Onah said however that one of the challenges was the effect of COVID-19 pandemic, saying that afterwards, there was hike in the prices of food items.
“That made it difficult for cooks to access food at the normal price they were getting it before,’’ he said.
Onah, however, said that apart from some of the challenges, the programme was really touching many lives positively in the state.
In his remarks, the Acting Head,  Capacity Strengthening and Policy Coherence Unit, World Food Programme (WFP), Kim Do- Hwan,  said that feeding children with nutritious meal would enhance their growth and productiveness.
Do-Hwan said that the training would help to improve National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme nationwide.