📋 Tender Overview
PROJECT ID
110807
TOTAL FUNDING
CAD 986,400.00
PROJECT STATUS
Active
DURATION
42 months
Summary
With the help of international organizations, Côte d'Ivoire has developed a School Feeding Program based mainly on locally produced food by agricultural groups largely constituted of women. Recently, the government and the agricultural groups have been taking over canteens’ implementation after the progressive withdrawal of international donors. These agricultural groups face several challenges such as low levels of production exacerbated by climate change, short-term technical support, and limited capacity for storage, conservation and processing of agricultural products resulting in a post-harvest loss of 40% to 60%. The project aims to strengthen the supply of local products to canteens, based on sustainable agriculture. It seeks to establish a resilient school feeding model, promoting the nutritional security of students, the well-being of women belonging to agricultural groups and good agroecological practices. Based on a participatory approach, the project will analyze local supply chains and their challenges, and the nutritional quality of school meals as part of the diagnosis phase. Best strategies to strengthen the links between canteens and agricultural groups and to foster the procurement of sustainably produced food will be identified. Interventions will be piloted in selected schools and their associated agricultural groups, and a roadmap to scale up piloted interventions will be developed. Expected outputs include evidence-based recommendations to mainstream sustainable local sourcing into national school feeding policies. The Directorate of School Canteens which is the key actor in the coordination of the National School Feeding Program will be equipped with the needed knowledge generated by the project to improve the current situation and to guide the expected expansion of this program in covering the canteens previously supported by international donors. Increased revenues of farmers (mainly women) and healthier more nutritious school meals are the key expected changes. The project will be implemented by the Ivorian Centre for Economic and Social Research hosted at the University Félix Houphouët-Boigny, in collaboration with the Directorate of School Canteens and other partners (e.g. Agence nationale d’appui au développement rural, Centre national de recherche agronomique, Centre d’excellence pour le riz en Afrique) over 42 months. It is part of the Catalyzing Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable Procurement Systems for School Food (CRISP), a cohort of projects that aim to catalyse the adoption and scaling-up of regenerative, equitable and inclusive practices in school meal supply systems in Africa, with the ultimate goal of contributing to the agroecological transition of local and national food systems.
