Nutrition
Paris conference fights for school meals for all children
An international initiative under the auspices of the United Nations is discussing in Paris how every child in the world will have access to school meals by 2030. photo
© Franziska Kraufmann/dpa
Millions of children worldwide do not get enough to eat. An international initiative under the auspices of the UN is campaigning for them to have access to school meals.
According to an international initiative, every child in the world should have access to school meals by 2030. Representatives from dozens of states and organizations have been discussing how this can be achieved since Wednesday Paris.
The international coalition “School Meals Coalition” was launched in 2021 by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) with the support of France and Finland. “Our goal is to provide all children with the meals they need to learn and grow well at school by 2030,” said French President Emmanuel Macron at the start of the conference.
Of the 349 million people in the world currently at high risk of inadequate nutrition, 153 million are children or adolescents, conference organizers said. In view of this emergency, school meals play a central role, but also serve longer-term goals. School nutrition does not just consist of a plate of food, but is an incentive for children to attend school and helps to overcome poverty, hunger and malnutrition. School feeding programs also strengthened local agriculture and provided jobs.
As the organizers announced, they have already achieved an increase in spending on school meals, particularly in low-income countries. The number of children with access to school nutrition programs increased from 388 million to 418 million in 2022 compared to the period before the corona pandemic. However, there are still around 430 million primary school children worldwide who do not have access to regular school nutrition.
The aim of the Paris conference is to attract more members to the School Meals Coalition, as well as greater support. France, for example, supports the initiative with over 28 million euros annually. As global food insecurity worsens in the face of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and inflation rises in many countries, the mobilization of everyone is necessary to provide school children with access to sufficient and healthy food, the initiative emphasized.