School Feeding Supports Marginalised Students, Promotes Local Food Products

While benefiting about 300,000 students across Cambodia, the school feeding programme (SFP) has also transformed into an effective mechanism to promote locally supplied food products. Undersecretary of State for the Ministry of Economy and Finance H.E. Chan Narith, who is also the Secretary General of the National Social Protection Council, made the note during the inauguration of a kitchen under the programme at Lvea primary school in Siem Reap on July 3. According to the undersecretary of state, the SFP was initially implemented in 1999 by the World Food Programme (WFP) with funding support from the McGovern-Dole Foundation and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The programme is collaborating with the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports, and it has by far covered a total of 1,114 targeted schools in ten provinces of Cambodia. The school feeding programme was initiated to improve the nutrition of marginalised students, especially in areas hit hard by poverty, in order to promote sch ool enrolment, reduce dropouts, and secure successful graduation among them. With improved rural infrastructure and agricultural production enabled by the government, continued H.E. Chan Narith, the programme's food products are being supplied by local farmers in those respective target areas. Source: Agence Kampuchea Presse