This year’s ADSF underscored the powerful role that school meals play at the intersection of nutritious meals, clean water, and hygiene for children and their communities. With school meals in Africa expanding by more than 20 million children in just two years, countries are now working to secure sustainable financing, improve infrastructure and better integrate education, health, nutrition, agriculture and water policies.
With 44 African countries represented to date in the School Meals Coalition, and over 60 governments with national commitments, the ADSF offered a key moment to drive progress and advance school meals as a transformative contributor to Agenda 2063.
This social media toolkit provides curated key messages, posts, templates, and shareable graphics to help you engage your audience around the 11th ADSF. Use it to spotlight #SchoolMeals as a global investment, promote new data and evidence, showcase governments’ leadership and commitments, and amplify the Coalition’s featured sessions and announcements. Simply copy, adapt, and post to join the global conversation.
Tag us: @SchoolMeals_
As part of this year’s Africa Day of School Feeding (ADSF), this advocacy brief highlights the powerful role that school meals play at the intersection of nutritious meals, clean water and hygiene for children and their communities. With school meals in Africa expanding from 66 million to 87 million children in just two years, countries are now working to secure sustainable financing, improve infrastructure and better integrate education, health, nutrition, agriculture and water policies.
Evidence demonstrates that school feeding is a game changer for children, as it incentivizes them to enrol in schools where they benefit from learning, and safe, diverse, and nutritious food.
At a time when 345 million people face crisis levels of hunger, including 153 million children and young people, school meals are a critical safety net for vulnerable children and households.
📍 At the 11th Africa Day of School Feeding celebration in #Botswana 🇧🇼, Vice President Hon. @Ndaba_Gaolathe opened the event by reaffirming:
— School Meals Coalition (@SchoolMeals_) March 1, 2026
➡️ “A child who is nourished is a child that can learn, and a child that can learn becomes an architect of #Africa’s prosperity. Botswana… pic.twitter.com/whw99wo5dV
🌍 #ADSF: H.E. Prof. Gaspard @Banyankimbona5, @AUCEducation Commissioner, highlights the importance of sustained political commitment:
— School Meals Coalition (@SchoolMeals_) March 1, 2026
➡️ “The future of #Africa depends on the investments we make in our children today.
Today’s Africa Day of School Feeding celebration is a clear… pic.twitter.com/77CPlWJAn9
🇷🇼 #Rwanda at #ADSF: Hon. @ClaudetteIrere, Minister of @Rwanda_Edu, underscored global & national commitment to #SchoolMeals:
— School Meals Coalition (@SchoolMeals_) March 1, 2026
➡️ “At the global level, Rwanda is a member of the @SchoolMeals_ Coalition which brings together more than 110 member countries worldwide. With great… pic.twitter.com/ZNayT3g7nq
🇧🇼 Highlight from the 11th Africa Day of School Feeding (#ADSF): “I am delighted to announce that #Botswana will be joining the @SchoolMeals_ Coalition”.
— School Meals Coalition (@SchoolMeals_) March 1, 2026
🎙️ Announced by Hon. Nono Kgafela-Mokoka, Minister of Child Welfare & Basic Education, building on Botswana’s #SchoolMeals… pic.twitter.com/ErVs1t8lYs
The communiqué reaffirms a shared commitment to expanding and strengthening school feeding programmes to ensure every child in Africa has access to nutritious meals and a safe learning environment.
This briefing paper explores how health taxes on tobacco, alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages can unlock additional domestic financing for school meals and school health programmes across Africa. It highlights the significant untapped fiscal potential of health taxes and demonstrates how redirecting a portion of these revenues could expand access to school meals, strengthen school health and nutrition programmes and support complementary investments such as water, sanitation and hygiene in schools. It presents evidence on financing gaps, outlines the triple benefits of health taxes for governments and includes country simulations from Burundi, Kenya and Uganda illustrating how tax reforms could mobilize resources to expand school meal coverage.
Children spend a large share of their day in school, making it a critical setting for shaping lifelong dietary habits and reducing health and nutrition inequities. Yet the foods available, served, sold or promoted in and around many schools often include products high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, free sugars and salt, and are not aligned with national dietary guidance.
This WHO guideline provides evidence-based recommendations and implementation considerations on policies to improve school food environments. It covers three areas: direct food provision in schools; nutrition standards or rules for foods and beverages served or sold at school; and nudging interventions that modify the school food environment to promote healthier choices.
The recommendations aim to increase the availability, purchase and consumption of foods and beverages that contribute to a healthy diet, and to reduce the presence and consumption of those that do not. The guideline emphasizes that foods and beverages provided, served, sold or consumed at schools should be safe and support healthy diets, in line with children’s rights and national public health goals.
The State of School Feeding Worldwide is the United Nations’ official reporting mechanism on school meals, produced biennially by the World Food Programme, as a flagship publication, as secretariat of the School Meals Coalition. It presents the most comprehensive global assessment of how countries support their children through effective school meal programmes worldwide, highlighting trends in coverage, financing, policies and impact.
The 2024 edition reveals unprecedented expansion, with 466 million children now reached worldwide—80 million more since 2020. It highlights governments’ investments of US$84 billion annually, evidence of multisectoral impacts across education, health, nutrition, jobs and food systems, and the role of the School Meals Coalition in driving progress. This edition also highlights a clear shift: school meals are no longer just seen as a donor-driven priority but as a nationally owned and powerful policy lever. Around the world, governments are elevating school health and nutrition in their agendas—recognising school meals as a smart investment in children’s futures and stronger food systems.
The report draws on draws on the best available data sources to present a global picture of school meals coverage, implementation practices, emerging research and costs of school-based health and nutrition programmes from direct government reporting, global surveys, WFP estimates and World Bank data.
