Despite remarkable economic growth in recent years, which the African Development Bank attributes to reforms in the agricultural sector, among other things, poverty still prevails in large parts of the population in Benin, particularly in rural areas and in the northern départements of the country. In addition, poorer households are ten times more likely to be food insecure than others. Female-headed households also have a higher risk of food insecurity, while the increasing level of education of the household head has a positive effect on nutrition. A total of 45 % of rural households are vulnerable and can slip into food insecurity at any time. It is not only the general availability of food that is a problem in Benin, but also the nutritionally inadequate composition of the food available to many families. One consequence of the narrow food spectrum is iron deficiency, especially among children and women.

In this context, the introduction of school meals in Benin is intended as a contribution to social security. The school sectors previously included in school feeding programmes are the state preschools (enseignement maternel), consisting of two classes, and the primary school (éducation des base scolaire 1 or enseignement primaire), which comprises six years (CI, CP, CE1, CE2, CM1 and CM2) and starts from a minimum age of five years. School feeding in Benin began in 1958 with CATHWEL, which later became CRS (Catholic Relief Services). The World Food Programme (WFP) began its work in Benin in 1967, feeding children from primary schools in disadvantaged areas and orphanages. Both organisations supported the most disadvantaged communities and provided food aid in the event of natural and other disasters.

The 2016 presidential elections led to the appointment of a new government that promotes the education sector and school meals in particular. Against this backdrop, the National Integrated School Feeding Programme, the Programme National d'Alimentation Scolaire Intégré (PNASI), was launched, involving the Ministries of Education, Agriculture and Health, among others, in a cross-sectoral approach. The implementation of the PNASI was entrusted to the WFP, which works together with local non-governmental organisations to implement the programme. The government’s goal with the PNASI is to cover 100 % of schools, harmonise the functioning of school meals and integrate all other forms of school canteens.

The programme has grown from 1,574 schools to currently around 5,500 schools with school meals in less than two years, covering 75 % of state primary schools in Benin. Although the declared aim of the programme is to procure food locally, Benin is still a long way from achieving this given the rapid increase in the number of schools. Only maize and beans are increasingly being purchased by the WFP from Beninese producers, while rice, oil and salt are largely procured abroad.

In June 2023, a team from INEF, together with two Beninese experts, conducted a qualitative study in 16 schools in seven départments to gain an insight into the implementation, actors and challenges of school meals on-site. The smallest of the schools surveyed had 135 pupils, the largest 601 children, whereby the number of boys and girls in the schools was roughly equal.

Only a very few of the schools visited had an electricity supply, and the supply of sanitary facilities and, above all, water was also inadequate, with water being needed for drinking, preparing food, washing dishes, washing hands and watering the school gardens, which are often present. Various parent committees manage the organisation of school meals and particularly the operation of the kitchen and the procurement of sauce ingredients at each school. The committees recruit cooks and set the amount to be paid by the parents per schoolchild per school day: FCFA 25 or 50. In order to generate additional funds for school meals, school gardens are often planted, common fields are cultivated or other income-generating activities, such as the production of palm oil or soap or animal husbandry, are carried out. In many cases, women are involved in these activities.

The cooks often complained about too much work for too little pay, which is called “motivation”. They sometimes have to work in closed kitchen buildings with open, smoky cookers that are hazardous to health. Most of the stoves encountered are energy-saving ones encased in clay, but traditional three-stone fires were also used, which require a lot of firewood. Innovative approaches, such as palm kernel or biogas-fuelled cookers, were rarely observed, and these systems were not always functional. Well-functioning logistics ensure that sufficient food is available in the WFP warehouses and is delivered to the right schools at the right time. The food for the schools is stored partly in purpose-built rooms, partly in the headteacher’s office and partly in rooms provided for this purpose in the village.

The various stakeholders in the school meal programmes were asked about their assessment of the impact of school meals. The parents of the pupils at almost every school visited emphasised that the daily meals at school would give mothers particularly the freedom to spend the day in the fields, at the market or with an income-generating activity instead of having to be at home at lunchtime to serve their children a meal. School meals are a great help in feeding the children, especially in the period before the next harvest when food is scarce in poor families. The children would also learn better and miss fewer lessons thanks to regular school meals. Even children from families who are unable to pay the daily contribution for school meals are not excluded from the meals. Teachers confirmed the more focused learning of pupils, together with a general increase in enrolment figures and fewer dropouts. Members of the producer cooperatives interviewed welcomed the opportunity to sell their crops to the WFP at good prices despite the additional effort required to meet the high quality standards, but would like to see administrative processes streamlined and the harvest collected more quickly.

Above all, the energy situation, which leads to considerable environmental damage in the long term, the inadequate pay of the cooks and the procurement of ingredients for the sauces, which is left entirely to the parents, need to be improved.

Overall, it should be noted that the government’s commitment to school meals is above average compared to other sub-Saharan African countries. However, despite significant increases, the share of the state budget is still far below the donor community’s Official Development Aid funds and there is still no sign of the Beninese government taking over most of the funding.