After five months of Zanzibar’s Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programme implementation, preliminary results from a survey on its impact show that 

• Enrolment has increased by 18% in the programme's nine schools 
• Pupil attendance increased to 86% by the end of the third school term 
• High school dropout cases declined to more than half 

Imperial College London’s Partnership for Child Development (PCD) supported the survey led by the Government which looked at household and smallholder farmer status, school enrolment, performance and attendance. 

 

 

The programme, which began in May 2014 as a pilot feeds over 5,200 schoolchildren using produce procured locally from smallholder farmers. The areas of intervention were chosen because of their high malnutrition, school drop out and incompletion rates as well as having high levels of food insecurity and rural household poverty. 

 

Data analysis for the farmer and household survey is ongoing and will be available shortly. An end of pilot survey specifically looking at household, school and farmer level impact is scheduled for April 2014, which will finalise all the programme's impacts.

 

Read more about HGSF in Zanzibar.