Image
Optimizing Primary School Meals in the Kyrgyz Republic

Optimizing Primary School Meals in the Kyrgyz Republic

Since 2006, the government of the Kyrgyz Republic has implemented a national School Meals Programme for over 440,000 primary school children. In January 2013, the World Food Programme and the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic launched a pilot intervention to improve the quality, efficiency, and sustainability of the national School Meals Programme. While programmes in lower-middle-income or low-income contexts tend to be—at least partially—dependent on external funding, this effort has demonstrated at way to provide high quality, nutritious meals within the limits of the available national state resources, in hygienic conditions, and with strong community participation.

June 12, 2017 - Last update: February 10, 2023

[vc_row row_type=”row” text_align=”left” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_column_text custom_options=””]

At the geography class in Ashimov school of Tuyp region. Photo: Aigul Eshtaeva / World Bank

Introduction

Since 2006, the government of the Kyrgyz Republic has implemented a national School Meals Programme for over 440,000 primary school children. In January 2013, the World Food Programme and the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic launched a pilot intervention to improve the quality, efficiency, and sustainability of the national School Meals Programme. While programmes in lower-middle-income or low-income contexts tend to be—at least partially—dependent on external funding, this effort has demonstrated at way to provide high quality, nutritious meals within the limits of the available national state resources, in hygienic conditions, and with strong community participation.

Malnutrition in the Kyrgyz Republic

As early as 2006, when the Kyrgyz national school feeding program began, stunting rates in three provinces were over 20 percent and one out of every 20 children born had low birth weight.[1] Persistant high prevalence of anemia led to increased risks of perinatal, maternal, and child mortality, as well as impaired cognitive functioning in children. Almost 22 percent deaths for children under five were attributable to undernutrition, or approximately 1,547 deaths annually.

School Feeding

In spite of the considerable level of expenditure in the Programme—over $6 million per year from state budget resources—gaps in program design and implementation make the quality of the meals nutritionally inadequate. According to a 2013 World Food Programme School Meals Baseline Assessment of selected schools, 87 percent of schools at that time would provide children with only a bread roll and tea, and school meals would provide only 58 percent of the calories and 36 percent of the protein values recommended by the Government for breakfast. Outside of school, the typical Kyrgyz diet is characterized by a high consumption of wheat, potatoes, and sugar, while intake of nutrient dense foods, such as meat, milk, and diary products has substantially decreased compared to 1990.

Using the Pilot to Optimize a National Primary School Meals Programme

The pilot to improve school feeding targets a diversified sample of districts—lowlands as well as mountains, remote rural areas and urban centers, poor and better off areas—in order to gather diverse experiences that can inform the National School Meals Implementation Strategy.

Within selected schools, all children in grades 1–4 (approximately 86,000) receive an improved menu of nutritious foods. One meal is served each school day, of which 99 percent of schools are hot meals; there is an increasing tendency to serve fresh salads (from 10 percent in 2015 to 41 percent in 2016) and meat (58 percent in 2016). Sample menus include:

  • milk-based oat porridge, compote, and a fortified bread roll;
  • rice pilaf, cabbage-stuffed fortified buns, and fruit compote; and
  • pea soup with potatoes, a fortified bread roll, and fruit compote.

Menus provide food with nutritional values as close as possible to the Kyrgyz Government’s recommended values for breakfast. The food distributed under the pilot provides an average of 30 percent of the children’s daily energy requirements (547 Kcal energy out of the 1,850 Kcal recommended by WHO/FAO for this age group), and is procured using Government money with occasional monetary of food contributions from World Food Programme and parents.

As of May 2016, 68 percent of the pilot school meals meet or exceed the government’s recommended dietary value for energy, vs. 13% of schools in September 2013.

Student & Community Engagement

Children are also encouraged to develop lifelong habits of eating more-balanced meals in the pilot, through a series of complementary activities meant to improve their knowledge, attitudes, and practices on nutrition. Additional outreach under this component includes:

  • Almost 8,000 children engaging in child-friendly interactive games that promote awareness of healthy and balanced diets;
  • Improving school hygiene facilities and teaching children about basic hygiene, especially handwashing, including through a joint UNICEF/World Food Programme pilot to introduce The Three Star Approach for WASH in schools[2] (since 2016);
  • Developing school garden farms (27 schools) and school vegetable plots (57 schools) so that children learn more about growing vegetables;
  • Supporting a 2014 Ministry of Health survey on consumption of junk food and sodas by school children in an effort to better understand and address this issue; and
  • Presenting a menu analysis in front of the Government’s Inter-Ministerial Working Group to describe progress, examine budgeting, and design operational recommendations.

Alongside activities for children, the pilot also attempts to educate parents and the broader community, by engaging them in the design of school menus, sharing and discussing results and generally encouraging them to make contributions to the program. The program ensures that women and mothers are fully represented in designing and making decisions through community engagement mechanisms, particularly consultations with parent-teacher groups.

Costs

School meals have a daily value of $0.10–$0.15 (som7–10) per child depending on the geographic location of the school, in line with national budget resources allocated to the project by the Kyrgyz Government. To ensure sustainability of the pilot, at the start of the program the World Food Programme will supply only fortified wheat flour (60 gr/child/day, equaling approximately $0.04), and this contribution will be substituted at handover by support from school farms, parents, and/or local authorities. The average contributions from parents have exceeded the value of World Food Programme’s wheat flour, however further work is required to sustain the parental contributions.

Conclusion

The Optimizing Primary School Meals Programme has found a way to design school feeding models that fit both government nutrition standards and national programme budgets by building on national and local potentials. It serves as a platform for both community input and parent education, and could serve as a model for improvements in other lower-middle income countries.

[2] The Three Star Approach for WASH in Schools is designed to improve the effectiveness of hygiene behavior change programs. The approach ensures that healthy habits are taught, practiced and integrated into daily school routines.

[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” text_align=”left” css_animation=””][vc_column]

This article originates from the Compendium of Case Studies Leveraging Social Protection Programs for Improved Nutrition, which was produced by SecureNutrition with funding from the Russian Federation. It is one of a suite of knowledge products—including an evidence review, a forum report, and a seminar series—that all result from the Global Forum on Nutrition-Sensitive Social Protection Programs in Moscow in September 2015. The goal of SecureNutrition is to support the efforts of World Bank Group staff to catalyze and foster nutrition-sensitive investments and activities across the key conditions that lead to poor nutrition. Visit http://www.securenutrition.org/ to find out more.

This In Practice article is part of a series to be shared via the SUN Movement website throughout 2017 in collaboration with SecureNutrition to help build the dialogue on nutrition-sensitive social protection programs.

[/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” text_align=”left” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” text_align=”left” css_animation=””][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”12176″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text custom_options=””]

Compendium of case studies: Leveraging Social Protection Programs for Improved Nutrition

English

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”9983″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text custom_options=””]

Evidence Review: Leveraging Social Protection Programs for Improved Nutrition

English

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”12179″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text custom_options=””]

Report on the Proceedings of the Global Forum

English

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Details

Topics
Nutrition for Growth Resource mobilization Food Systems
Country
Kyrgyz Republic