School meals in Africa must address hidden inequalities, says new review

A review of Home-Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programs in Africa has called for harmonizing economic and nutritional goals to transform school-based interventions into drivers of equitable development. 

Nutrition Insight speaks to the author Johan Verheyden, senior research expert and CEO at Aries Consult, who underlines the importance of policy intervention, gender-responsive land reforms, climate-resilient crop diversification, and hybrid technologies. 

The review looks at how the interventions can bring long-term impacts on intergenerational poverty and cultural-ecological sustainability. According to the UN World Food Programme, HGSF model involves safe, diverse, and nutritious food, sourced locally from smallholders, to children in schools.

“HGSF holds immense potential: not just to feed children, but to reshape food systems, labor markets, and gender norms. But without confronting the hidden tensions — invisible labor, weak supply chains, fragile cooperatives — programs risk feeding today while starving tomorrow,” states Verheyden.

“We have a unique opportunity to make HGSF a lever for lasting, systemic change if we are willing to engage with these complexities head-on.”

Whose nutrition counts most?

Verheyden explains how to reconcile nutritional goals with the fact that school-aged children are not the most vulnerable to malnutrition.

Most school feeding labor is unpaid and done by women, yet it rarely appears in budgets.“While the first 1,000 days are critical for preventing stunting, school-aged children often face persistent nutrient deficiencies that affect their cognitive development, school performance, and future productivity. HGSF addresses this crucial but often overlooked stage.” 

“Moreover, by covering older children’s dietary needs, HGSF can free up household resources for younger siblings — though evidence from Burkina Faso suggests that this ‘trickle-down’ effect is inconsistent unless programs are designed intentionally to promote it.”

According to Verheyden, more experts advocate for closer cooperation between school feeding and maternal and early childhood programs “to ensure no gaps along the life course.”

True cost of decentralization

The report reveals that localized procurement empowers smallholders and women, as opposed to centralized systems, where decisions and processes are handled by one authority. For HGSF, this decentralized system promotes schools or local governments to source food locally.

Johan Verheyden, senior research expert and CEO at Aries Consult.However, decentralization may have hidden trade-offs, such as quality control gaps, elite capture, or uneven capacity. Verheyden reveals how this could compromise its long-term effectiveness.

“Decentralized procurement certainly offers opportunities for local empowerment, but it brings significant risks. In Mozambique, local cooperatives often lacked the volume capacity and food safety standards needed, leading to reliance on external imports.”

“In Ghana, inconsistent local supplies led caterers to substitute cheaper, less nutritious staples,” he adds. “And in Nigeria and Malawi, politically connected suppliers captured contracts intended for vulnerable farmers. Without investments in infrastructure, farmer training, and anti-corruption safeguards, decentralization risks shifting, rather than solving, supply chain challenges — becoming, in some cases, a ‘localized mess.’” 

Structural barriers and hierarchies 

The review stresses that women’s cooperatives are central to inclusive HGSF supply chains. However, structural barriers may persist within these groups. Verheyden tells us about how hierarchies may appropriate empowerment under the pretense of inclusivity.

“While women’s cooperatives are crucial for inclusion, deep structural barriers persist. In Malawi and Ghana, women dominate cooperative membership but still lack access to land titles, financial services, and leadership roles.”

“Studies from Ethiopia and Rwanda show that cooperative bylaws often continue to favor male voices. Even when women hold leadership roles, unpaid care work frequently limits their ability to participate fully — many mothers in Nigeria, for example, skipped cooperative meetings to meet household duties,” continues Verheyden.

Local food sourcing can empower farmers but risks corruption and poor nutrition if mismanaged.He stresses that without reforms, such groups risk becoming more symbolic than transformative — an “empowerment theatre.” Changes are required in childcare support, financial literacy training, and leadership quotas for real impact.

Women’s invisible labor

The review reveals invisible labor-feeding school systems. Local procedures impact women differently from men.

“Women’s labor underpins school feeding systems but remains systematically invisible. Globally, women perform around 82% of school feeding work, yet their contributions rarely appear in contracts or budgets,” shares Verheyden.

“In Ghana, caterers often waited months for reimbursements, forcing them into debt. In Peru, mothers rotated unpaid cooking shifts, sometimes subsidizing meals from their limited supplies. This systemic invisibility stems from entrenched norms that devalue care work.”

Verheyden urges program budgets to explicitly account for human labor “through fair wages, job protections, and timely payments.” Otherwise, the “hidden economy of women’s time” will support national nutrition goals at their expense.

“School feeding programs can simultaneously uplift and entrench inequalities. While meals often improve girls’ educational access, they also disproportionately burden women with unpaid or low-paid work,” he states.

“In Kenya’s Turkana County, women cooks reported working twelve-hour days for less than two dollars. In Malawi, mothers took on additional hours processing HGSF ingredients. Procurement rules that superficially favor ‘women’s groups’ sometimes fail to ensure women actually control the resulting income.”

Dietary diversity is proven to help kids, but procurement still favors cheap, starchy staples.According to Verheyden, true empowerment requires going beyond symbolic gestures. It needs “fair labor protections, equitable pay, and dismantling the idea that women’s caregiving labor is an inexhaustible resource.”

We previously explored how women’s groups are important forces in improving nutrition access by gathering collective strength to overcome economic, social, and institutional barriers in India. 

Dietary diversity in question

Diverse diets are known to improve nutritional outcomes. However, according to the review, procurement systems resort to buying the cheapest and least diverse foods. 

“Despite strong evidence that dietary diversity drives better nutrition, procurement systems prioritize cost, shelf life, and administrative simplicity over nutritional quality. Rigid rules and tight budgets push buyers toward starchy staples like maize and rice,” explains Verheyden. 

“In Osun State, Nigeria, 51% of caterers reported abandoning planned menus because of high prices or supply gaps. Meanwhile, fortified maize might help with iron intake but does little for vitamin A or overall micronutrient adequacy.”

To solve this issue, Verheyden says flexible budgets, incentives for nutrient-rich local foods, and menu planning that values nutrition and resilience alongside price are required.

Beyond feeding

As calls grow to decolonize African food systems, advocates push beyond aid and exports, calling for a change in the narrative to nourishment. Nutrition Insight explored how Germany’s trade and aid policies affect African food systems and why local control and nutrition must come first. 

Meanwhile, scientists are going to address malnutrition and stunting in Africa by using precision nutrition and improving protein digestibility in foods rooted in culture.

Nearly half of the world’s primary school children now receive school meals, but UNESCO told us that food quality remains a critical gap.