June 26, 2001

Food for Education Can Fight Hunger and Poverty
IFPRI Releases Comprehensive Evaluation of Innovative Anti-Poverty Program

WASHINGTON, DC – Food for Education programs, which combine food assistance with education, are a powerful tool in combating poverty and illiteracy in developing nations, according to research released today by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

The best-known type of Food for Education program is school feeding, which provides children meals in school, similar to the school lunch and breakfast programs in the United States. School feeding increases academic performance, in part because a well-fed child can concentrate better. Commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development, IFPRI's research evaluated a different approach: Food for Schooling.

"In contrast to school feeding, Food for Schooling sends food home, which also benefits women and young children in poor families. This is especially important because women and children are the most vulnerable to malnutrition," said Per Pinstrup-Andersen, director general of IFPRI.

"This program targets poor families and provides them with grain food subsidies if their children attend class," said George McGovern, ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. "Results show that in Bangladesh, where half of the local population cannot afford enough food and millions of children are dying from malnutrition, the Food for Schooling program is working to raise both primary school attendance and food consumption levels among poor families."

Worldwide, more than 130 million children ages six to eleven are not attending school. Nearly 60 percent are girls. About 200 million children under age five suffer from malnutrition.

For nine years, IFPRI has been working with the government of Bangladesh to design and evaluate the world's first Food for Schooling program. Using quantitative and qualitative research techniques and extensive household surveys, IFPRI has evaluated the program to determine how much it has improved the livelihoods of poor households in Bangladesh.

According to the research, student enrollment increased by 44 percent for girls and 28 percent for boys in schools where the program has been adopted. According to the evaluation, the program is so successful at increasing school enrollments that participating schools face serious overcrowding, which has consequences for the quality of education.

The IFPRI evaluation also found that the program significantly increases calorie and protein consumption in the beneficiary households.

"These results have been remarkable," said Akhter Ahmed, senior research fellow at IFPRI and the lead researcher on this project. "By reducing illiteracy and channeling resources into very poor families, Food for Schooling can help to address long term causes of hunger and poverty. IFPRI research demonstrates that increased education for girls, in particular, has a profound long-term impact on poverty reduction."

The U.S. Agency for International Development and other international donors are preparing to launch a major expansion of international Food for Education programs.

"There has been a lot of public discussion recently on expanding the international school lunch program," commented Pinstrup-Andersen. "We believe that school feeding and Food for Schooling would both be even more effective if they were combined."

"In combination with school lunches, Food for Schooling will help fight illiteracy, poverty and hunger and assist poor children and their families not only today, but also for the long term," said Senator Robert Dole, who, along with Ambassador McGovern, has advocated the expansion of international school feeding programs.

Download a copy of this press release (PDF 30K).

For more information, contact:

Michael Rubinstein, International Food Policy Research Institute,
(202) 862-5670, m.rubinstein@cgiar.org