THE UNITED NATIONS WORLD FOOD

Published purpose

The project will aim to improve the health and nutrition of children in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Niger through school-based interventions. This project will expand on the original project in South Sudan and Somalia. In response to the COVID-19 crisis and in recognition that partnerships are needed to meet the health and nutrition needs of children, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) launched an initiative to strengthen their partnership at the global level and on the ground. Globally, the partnership seeks to reach 35 million children in 30 fragile and low-income countries with an integrated package of school health and nutrition services. The current project seeks to support WFP’s and UNICEF’s interventions assisting the Governments of the three countries to reopen schools safely, and to incentivise the most vulnerable children, particularly girls, to return to school safely where they can receive essential health and nutrition support. As schools reopen, this project is designed to prioritize school meal programmes with innovative delivery systems that can be adapted to the COVID 19 context to ensure that households can access nutritious foods. WFP and UNICEF have developed detailed country plans in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Niger to provide an integrated suite of activities to support children’s well-being, health and nutrition. These include school feeding, take home rations, micronutrient supplementation, community sensitization, water hygiene and sanitation (WASH), and education assistance for the most vulnerable and crisis affected children.