📋 Tender Overview
PROJECT ID
110636
TOTAL FUNDING
CAD 999,500.00
IDRC OFFICER
Edidah Lubega Ampaire
PROJECT STATUS
Active
DURATION
36 months
Summary
In Kenya, school feeding contributes to enhanced school attendance, improved nutrition and higher test scores among learners. The operational plan for the School Meal Program Scale-up 2024-2030 seeks to roll out universal school meals coverage based on the existing food procurement strategies. However, effective home-grown school feeding is being hampered by marginalization of some regions, exclusion of local farmers from the supply chain and use of imported food ingredients, among other factors. Additionally, the number of learner beneficiaries has substantially declined because of resource limitations leading to inconsistent and insufficient meals in target schools.
This project seeks to promote healthy and sustainable diets in schools, increase incomes and strengthen the resilience of local food system stakeholders, particularly women and youth, by designing and piloting scalable, innovative, viable and inclusive procurement systems. The research will emphasize agroecological practices and gender equality responsiveness in production, processing, distribution and consumption linked to the existing home-grown school feeding programs. It will also assess the policy bottlenecks to inform the creation of an enabling policy and regulatory environment. The evidence gathered in the research phase will support co-creation, design and piloting of innovative, viable and inclusive procurement models in two counties and recommendations for scaling of the proposed procurement systems will be shared with policy decision-makers, including national and county governments and other stakeholders involved in home-grown school feeding programs.
This project is part of the School Food Catalyzing Climate-Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable Procurement initiative led by IDRC. It seeks to catalyze the equitable and inclusive adoption and scaling of sustainable practices throughout the school meal procurement system, which could ultimately result in broader positive improvements in local or national food systems, including agroecological practices.
