School meals keep girls learning and boost women’s earnings

Around the world, governments are elevating school health and nutrition in their agendas—recognizing school meals as a smart investment in children’s futures and stronger, fairer food systems. Taking on a share of household food costs, school meals have in the past acted as a safety net. They help families keep daughters in class, especially during hard seasons, price spikes, or crises. Countries also now see how school meals can generate jobs. When schools buy food from nearby farmers and vendors, women benefit along the chain—as growers, processors, and cooks. Local food can put income in women’s hands while bringing fresher, familiar foods to children’s plates.

Independent evaluations from 13 organizations, including the World Bank, found that school feeding has the strongest evidence of inclusion for girls and women. The Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard, which offers the latest and crucial data on food crises before they happen, now tracks school feeding programs. According to the Global Child Nutrition Foundation:

• At least 73 countries report more than 50% of school cooks are women
• 67 countries focus on creating jobs for women through school meals programs 
• 88 countries involved local farmers in school meals programs
• 109 reported for profit private sectors involvement in school meals

These statistics show that data is vital for understanding this issue and shaping policy. However, school meal programs still face significant data gaps. By bringing together data from the Global Survey, the World Bank’s Atlas of Social Protection: Indicators of Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE), and the Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard, we can build the evidence needed for better policy decisions and stronger programs worldwide.

For International Women’s Day, we highlight three ways school meals keep girls learning and boost women’s earnings.

1. School meals can power up women’s livelihoods

School meals can create jobs and increase women’s economic power: When school meal programs are designed intentionally, they don’t just feed children—they can employ more women, build skills, and anchor local economies.

Pilot programs in Jordan, Colombia, Mozambique and Comoros demonstrate the potential of this approach in boosting local employment opportunities, especially for women, and supporting community-based inclusion. The goal is for investments to be aligned with national employment and productive and economic inclusion strategies.

For example, the World Bank and WFP helped Jordan conduct a rigorous impact evaluation of the National School Feeding Program, analyzing how this program affected learning, kitchen worker employment opportunities, income and socioeconomic outcomes. The evaluation found that women who were employed in school kitchens increased their household income three times. Indonesia recently announced that its Free Nutritious Meals program hopes to generate 1.5 million jobs nationwide through school kitchens, combining nutrition support with employment opportunities.

The World Bank Group is scaling up linkages between job creation, food procurement, and employment generation, emphasizing local produce from smallholder farmers. The focus on jobs is expanding all along the food value chain and linking smallholder farmers to more stable sources of demand for their products through school meal programs.

In another project in Nepal, for example, over 25 percent of cooperatives selected for supplies across the six intervention districts were women cooperatives. Similarly, linking farmer to school programs in Bhutan has enabled the creation of women cooperatives that supply school feeding programs.

School meals programs have potential to generate employment for women. Continued research and robust policy making will help countries ensure the sustainability of these jobs and strengthen the role of school meals in local markets and local economies.

2. School meals and take-home additions help girls stay in school, especially through adolescence

School meals programs are proven incentives that keeps girls in school longer, particularly at the secondary level when dropout risk rises. For girls, staying in school between the ages of 14 and 19 delays pregnancy and marriage until adulthood, World Bank Group studies show.

Enrollment and attendance increase with robust School Programs, with particularly large gains for girls, displaced and refugee children, and families in food‑insecure areas. “The State of School Feeding Worldwide,” the World Food Program’s most recent flagship report, revealed that girls experience a differentiated and larger effect from school meals than boys, specifically when it comes to school attendance, dietary diversity and overall health and well-being. In a number of countries and contexts, school meals contribute to overcoming barriers to girls’ access to continued education.

A daily, reliable meal draws girls to school and keeps them learning. In many countries, meals and nutritious take home snacks for girls have boosted attendance—and the longer girls stay in school, the better they do and the later they marry. In addition, school meal programs are increasingly platforms for health education, menstrual dignity, and safe learning environments.

A World Bank Group analysis of school meal programs across 32 Sub-Saharan African countries show onsite meals combined with take home rations increased the enrollment of girls by 12%. There is also a strong correlation between access to meal programs and higher levels of education and a reduction in child marriages.

3. School meals support girls’ and women’s health  

In Burkina Faso, take home snacks or rations not only improved the nutrition of siblings as well. Preschool siblings in particular improved their weight for age and height, which can indicate household-level welfare gains in addition to benefiting children enrolled in school.

School meal programs reduce anemia in preadolescent girls ages 10-13, and they reduce short‑term hunger, improving attention. The South Asian experience shows that school meals provide critical support in emergencies. The recent economic crisis in Sri Lanka, for example, showed how school meals can act as a rapidly scalable safety net. With the support of the WB, the government expanded the program following the economic crisis, from one million children to 2 million children.

As the evidence and momentum for school meal benefits build, both Kenya and Ethiopia have also committed to scaling up national school meal programs, with Kenya aiming to achieve universal coverage by 2030, expanding its coverage from 2.3 million children receiving school meals in 2022 to 10 million children by 2030.

Investing in women’s nutrition through well designed social protection programming is also one of the most cost-effective development investments: Every $1 invested in improving nutrition can generate up to $24 in economic returns—improving the health, education, and productivity of future generations.