The United Nations World Food Programmes (WFP) has released its report titled “The State of School Feeding Worldwide on February 24, 2021.
Key Findings of the report
- As per the report, the COVID-19 pandemic risks have reversed the efforts that were made worldwide in a decade to provide nutritious food to the most vulnerable children across the globe.
- The report highlights that, one in two school children that would count as around 388 million children worldwide received the school meals when the pandemic was at its peak. This accounts for the highest number in history.
- When the pandemic was at its peak around April 2020, 199 countries had closed their schools. Because of which, 370 million children were suddenly deprived of nutritious meal of the day.
- The report highlighted that, the lockdown threw spotlight on the critical role that school plays in feeding vulnerable children and protecting their futures.
Recommendations by the report
- It proposes to strengthen the global action in order to get the coverage to the pre-pandemic levels.
- It also proposes to reach around 73 million vulnerable children who were not getting the nutritious meals even before the pandemic.
UN World Food Programme
WEP is food-assistance branch of United Nations that was founded in the year 1961. It is the world’s largest humanitarian organization that focuses on hunger and food security. This organisation is also the largest provider of school meals. WEP is headquartered in Rome and also has offices across 80 countries. The organisation has served 97 million people across 88 countries as of 2019. The organisation also provides technical assistance and development aid including building capacity for emergency preparedness and managing supply chains and logistics etc. It is also providing direct cash assistance and medical supplies. It was awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 for its efforts in providing food assistance in the areas of conflict.