School meal programs are increasingly recognized as an important investment in children's well-being, with benefits including reduced malnutrition, higher school attendance, and support for gender equality by helping girls stay in school longer. These programs are among the largest nutrition-sensitive social protection initiatives globally and play a significant role in the World Bank’s aim to reach 500 million more people with social protection and employment by 2030, as announced at the launch of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty in 2024.
Despite their importance, data on school meals has often been fragmented or outdated. To address this issue, a partnership was formed between three organizations: the Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard, the World Bank’s Atlas of Social Protection: Indicators of Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE), and the Global Child Nutrition Foundation’s Global Survey of School Meal Programs. This collaboration brings together multiple data sources into a single platform to provide clearer insights into coverage, quality, and impact.
The integration process involved harmonizing data from the Global Survey with other social protection program information within ASPIRE. The standardized dataset is now included in the Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard alongside other indicators. This allows policymakers to better understand needs and coverage related to food security and social protection efforts.
While there has been an increase in children benefiting from school meals—often sourced directly from local farmers with more diverse menus—major gaps remain in understanding how these programs operate across developing countries. Weak institutional capacity or conflict can make it difficult for some low-income countries to report on spending for social protection measures like school meals.
“School meal programs are an important source of jobs, particularly for women—the school feeding labor force is mostly women in most places in the world,” said Ayala Wineman, Research Scientist at GCNF.
Even though databases such as ASPIRE cover many developing nations, they still lack comprehensive data from numerous low-income countries where household surveys may be infrequent or omit questions about social protection entirely. In areas affected by conflict or fragility, humanitarian assistance often replaces government-led initiatives, with international organizations leading data collection instead.
Data standardization remains essential so that policymakers can compare information easily across sectors. A unified system would allow governments to track all spending on social assistance effectively.
Marianne Grosclaude, Practice Manager for Agriculture and Food at the World Bank stated: “School feeding programs are an investment in food and nutrition security, for generations to come. Including this data in the Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard is essential as school meal programs are one of the largest social safety nets and have an explicit objective to increase food and nutrition security. Now users of the dashboard can identify gaps in both food security and school feeding coverage for a holistic picture.”
Going forward, continued collaboration among governments and partners will be necessary to fill remaining data gaps regarding school meals delivery methods while boosting investments if long-term improvements are desired.
Christian Bodewig, Practice Manager for Social Protection and Jobs at the World Bank said: “School meal programs deliver exceptional returns. They rank among the most cost-effective education interventions and act as vital social protection programs, covering 10 to 20 percent of annual food costs for the poorest families and creating millions of jobs—most for women—when scaled globally.”
A representative from Belize's new school meal program added: "As Belize has a new school meal program, we find it valuable to learn about other programs in our region. We are happy to share our data for the global survey to contribute to global learning on school feeding."