An investment in children’s futures
School meals are a vital investment in children’s futures, reducing malnutrition, boosting school attendance, and promoting gender equality by helping girls remain in school longer. Among the largest nutrition-sensitive social protection programs, school meals are crucial to the World Bank’s goal of reaching 500 million more people with social protection and employment by 2030, as announced during the launch of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty in 2024.
However, data on school meals has long been fragmented and outdated, making it difficult to assess their coverage, quality and real impact over time. A unique partnership is helping to address this critical gap across three institutions: the Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard, the World Bank’s Atlas of Social Protection: Indicators of Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE) and the Global Child Nutrition Foundation’s Global Survey of School Meal Programs, bringing multiple, yet harmonized data sources into a single platform.
Through this partnership, Global Survey data was integrated into ASPIRE, harmonizing it with other social protection programs to ensure comparability across countries and over time; this standardized dataset was then incorporated into the Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard, where it is featured alongside other indicators, providing policymakers with a clear picture of need and coverage. By integrating the Global Survey data, the core data source for the School Meals Coalition’s database, into a harmonized platform, decision-makers can contextualize school feeding within a broader view of food security and nutrition-sensitive social protection. The partnership is a step forward in making relevant data accessible to policymakers, enabling governments to benchmark global progress and make evidence-based decisions.
Mind the data gap
While the Global Survey shows a steady increase in the number of children benefiting from school meals, with governments sourcing food directly from local farmers and diversifying into nutritious foods such as fish, dairy and vegetables, major data gaps persist. There is no clear picture of how most developing countries deliver this crucial form of social protection. In low-income countries, for example, weak capacity and conflict can make it difficult to report spending on social protection, including school meals.
“School meal programs are an important source of jobs, particularly for women—the school feeding labor force is mostly women in most places in the world,” said Ayala Wineman, Research Scientist, GCNF.
Even the ASPIRE Database, which covers many developing countries, still lacks data from many low-income countries, where household surveys are only implemented every five to ten years and often lack comprehensive questions about social protection. Indeed, household surveys often fail to capture good information on school meals and sometimes lack relevant questions entirely. In fragile or conflict-affected countries, humanitarian assistance often replaces government-led social protection, and international organizations typically lead data collection efforts.
Data can only be useful for policymakers, decision-makers and the general public when standardized and easily comparable. A single system is needed to show all government spending on social assistance across sectors.
