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Earlier this week hgsf-global.org attended a presentation by the World Bank's Prof Donald Bundy to the UK's All Party Parliamentary Group on School Meals on international school meals, in his World Bank blog Prof Bundy outlines why school feeding is seen as a global safety net.

Next time it could be you: Why we should all care about International School Meals Day

"Two days before the world observes International School Meals Day, I’m here sitting in the U.K. Houses of Parliament thinking about the unexpected evolution of school meals programs in recent years.

Why am I blogging about this topic from a rich country?  To understand this, we need to go back to 2008 when the global financial crisis kicked off with major spikes in food prices, and the specter of hunger loomed over the low-income world. 

Read more: Why we should all care about International School Meals Day

Marc Van Ameringen is Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). He was recently awarded WFP's "Hunger Hero Award". In the article below, originally featured in The Guardian, he explains why an agriculture and nutrition integrated agenda is vital for addressing malnutrition in low and middle income countries. 

One of the most important events for the nutrition sector over the past two decades was the Nutrition for Growth meeting convened by David Cameron in the lead up to the last G8 meeting. For the first time we saw developing country governments, civil society, donors, and the private sector make major commitments to address undernutrition, totaling over US$ 23 billion up to 2020. But is this enough to meet Ban Ki-moon's challenge of ending hunger and malnutrition in our lifetime? Can the agriculture and nutrition communities step up to the plate and work better together?...

Read more: Can agriculture play a bigger role in solving malnutrition?

Based on ‘The State of School Feeding Worldwide 2013’ (WFP) the following countries in Europe have government-led school feeding: 

Read more: The State of School Feeding in Europe

In 2013, up to $75billion dollars was invested by the governments of 169 countries into school feeding programmes. It is estimated that for every $1 spent feeding school children, $3 are generated for the local economy. On January 22, a special meeting of global leaders in school feeding met in the UK parliament to discuss how governments are increasingly using school feeding programmes as a means to both improve educational outcomes and at the same time improve agricultural economies.

Read more: The Evolution of School Feeding