Local community members are the keystone of home grown school feeding programmes. From smallholder farmers to cooks and caterers to teachers and schoolchildren, they comprise all elements of the school feeding supply chain and are integral to programme design and implementation.

Home grown school feeding programmes that respond to community needs, are locally owned, and incorporate some form of parental or community contribution, whether cash payments or in-kind (e.g., through donated food or labour), tend to be the strongest and most successful programmes.

The documents available here are specifically relevant to local community members and include policy and programming background on HGSF at the global and regional levels. Additionally, operational support information provides background on local foods, operational guidelines and toolkits, as well as operational data. The monitoring and evaluation section includes case studies that highlight good practice and lessons learned from a number of countries, impact evaluations of the benefits and trade-offs of different programmatic designs, and monitoring reports of programme operations. Advocacy resources are also provided that can be used to relay key HGSF messages at the community level.