Program and Event

Generous US contribution will enable WFP to increase its School Feeding project in the South

WFP Country Representative in Lao PDR, Ms. Karin Manente, and Deputy Education Minister H.E. Lytou Bouapao welcome a generous contribution from U.S. Ambassador to Laos Ravic Huso

VIENTIANE – LAO PDR. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Lao PDR welcomed today a generous contribution of more than $9 million over the course of 3 years from the United States of America, which will be used to fund the expansion of the WFP School Feeding Project to the three southern provinces of Saravane, Sekong and Attapeu. The contribution was awarded to WFP Laos under the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program.

A handover ceremony took place today in Vientiane, with the participation of the WFP Country Representative in the Lao PDR, Ms. Karin Manente, the Ambassador of the United States, H.E. Rudolf Ravic Huso, and the Minister of Education, H.E. Prof. Dr. Somkot Mangnomek.

From the next school semester (February 2009), about 25,000 schoolchildren in 11 districts and 232 schools in these provinces will receive a nutritious snack every day at school, and take-home rations to share with their families. This is in addition to the current School Feeding activities in the north, which involve more than 1,000 schools in Phongsaly, Oudomxay and Luangnamtha provinces.

“WFP is extremely grateful for this contribution, which allows us to reach three new provinces, and to give much needed assistance to schools in rural and remote areas, of Saravane, Sekong and Attapeu. The United States is the biggest WFP donor at corporate level, and the McGovern-Dole Program is enabling WFP to reach hundreds of thousands of children in some of the world’s poorest countries,” said Ms. Manente at the ceremony. U.S. Ambassador to Laos Ravic R. Huso said that: “I am honoured to have this opportunity to participate in the turnover of critically needed food for the expansion of the school feeding program into Saravane, Sekong, and Attapeu provinces”.

The School Feeding Project was started in Lao PDR in 2002 and had so far focused on the three northern provinces of Phongsaly, Oudomxay and Luangnamtha, where the educational indicators for primary school children, and girls especially, were particularly low. For the expansion of the project, the baseline survey data to identify the new target areas were taken from the Lao PDR Population and Housing Census of 2005, which indicates the provinces of Attapeu, Saravane and Sekong as below national averages on key educational indicators such as enrolment, retention and completion rates for primary school, as well as the ratio of girls to boys attending school. Attendance rates were particularly low, registered at 69 percent against the national average of 85 percent. The data were integrated with research by the WFP Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping unit (VAM) which found that, like provinces in the north already supported by WFP School Feeding, these southern provinces presented enrolment and malnutrition rates among the worst in the country and thus identified them as areas of critical need.

In the past year, the Ministry of Education and WFP have worked closely on the expansion of the project, to identify the project areas, the target schools and villages, to open new offices and find warehouse space in the South.

Under the School Feeding Project, mid-morning snacks - made with vitamin and mineral fortified corn-soya blend (CSB), sugar and oil - are given to all students to aid concentration and encourage attendance. Take-home rations of rice, canned fish and iodized salt are given to all students upon enrolment and at the end of the school year to students who have attended over 80% of school days. To reduce the gender gap, girls receive bigger take-home rations. Informal boarders – children who live over one hour by food away from school and either walk home every day or live in simple boarding facilities close to the school – receive extra rations to encourage them to attend school and sustain their families’ efforts to allow them to pursue education.

With the three new provinces, WFP School Feeding programme will be able to reach almost 115,000 primary schoolchildren in the six provinces, with a total number of beneficiaries (including the children’s families, cooks and storekeepers) of more than 380,000 people.