PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes new multi-year funding from the government of Canada to enable WFP and the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training (MENFP) to provide healthy daily meals for up to 100,000 pre-school and primary school students in Haiti.
The CAD$45 million contribution will provide a stable, long-term source of funding for WFP’s school feeding programmes, including home-grown school meals. This reduces malnutrition, improves school attendance and promotes academic success, while increasing the income and long-term resilience of local smallholder farmers.
By purchasing the ingredients for school meals from local farmers and producers, WFP supports job creation and helps build the capacity of Haitian farmers. Currently, over half of all school meals provided by WFP in Haiti are locally produced.
“The transition to locally produced school meals is a key priority for WFP in Haiti. By 2028, we aim to have all our school meals locally sourced. This contribution from Canada helps us move closer to that goal, which not only ensures students have the nutrition needed to grow and learn, but also contributes to the development of local agriculture and stimulates the local economy. It’s a win-win situation,” said Wanja Kaaria, WFP country director in Haiti.
This new funding from Canada will allow WFP and MENFP to reach 400 schools across the country with daily, hot nutritious meals by working together with 70 producer associations. In addition, 2,000 farmers will be trained on storage, grain conservation, quality control and reduction of post-harvest loss.
The contribution from Canada makes up a significant part of the overall WFP school meals programme in Haiti, which reached a total of 478,000 students across the country during the 2023-24 school year.
Meanwhile, WFP welcomes the G7s focus on food security within its development agenda, said the latest efforts by the G7, to put food security and nutrition in conflict and in fragile settings at the centre of its development agenda.
The latest commitment comes as 309 million people face acute hunger driven by conflicts, economic disruptions, and the climate crisis.
At the G7 meeting on Development this week, members reaffirmed their commitment to the G7 Apulia Food Systems Initiative (AFSI), to improve food security and nutrition and recognised the need for innovative solutions to increase public and private funding for food security.
“By leveraging innovative financing like debt swap agreements to invest in resilience and bolster food security, we can drive progress toward a world where no one goes to bed hungry,” said WFP executive director, Cindy McCain. “The global effort to eradicate hunger and malnutrition requires all of us – governments, partners and communities – to collaborate on lasting solutions that create the conditions for long-term, sustainable development”.
The G7 ministers articulated the G7 Apulia Progress Report 2024, to assess the progress made on G7 development-related commitments with a focus on Africa and to inform future G7 development cooperation strategies and through a special session, endorsed the need for joint action for humanitarian access and accelerated coordination to address the ongoing crisis in the Middle East.
Since it assumed presidency of the G7, Italy has prioritised addressing food security, building sustainable food systems and improving nutrition among its wider G7 commitments.
- G7 Development Ministers’ Meeting Communiqué can be found here.
