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Sao Tome and Principe

WFP Sao Tome and Principe Country Brief, February 2017

Attachments

Highlights

  • WFP in collaboration with the European Union, the Government and local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is involved in an initiative to introduce local products in the school meals programme.

  • Country office continues its advocacy efforts to mobilize resource to support the school meals programme.

WFP Assistance

Following the approval of a budget revision for an extension in time of the current Development project (until December 2017), WFP will continue to provide technical assistance to the Coordination Unit of the PNASE (National School Feeding and Health Programme) by gradually transferring the responsibility of providing daily hot meals to schoolchildren to the Government and increasing institutional and human capital development in support of the Government in managing a school meals programme on its own.

To implement the recommendations of the decentralized evaluation and SABER exercise, the country office is engaging some embassies in Sao Tome and Principe to mobilize support for the school meals programme.

Partnership was formed with the European Union funds, the Government and national and international NGOs to introduce local products in the school meals programme.

With this the country office expects to start homegrown school meals activities and bring the Government to integrate school meals in the social protection strategy. Other forms of support can be quite interesting as a "linkage" of school meals with local agriculture in the context of social protection or the social safety nets project of the Government.

This Budget Revision is expected to strongly contribute to Strategic Objective 4 “Reduce undernutrition and break the cycle of hunger”, and to the objectives of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2017-2021 and the Government’s Poverty Reduction Policy Strategy which supports the Government's efforts to increase access to basic education through food and nutrition assistance. WFP will continue to advocate for gender equality and indicators suggest a strong improvement in the area in the course of the implementation of the Development project.

Operational Updates

  • The transition towards a nationally owned school meals programme continues as planned. In line with this goal, meetings with other partners and PNASE were organized. The Ministry of Education – through PNASE – will take over the management of the school meals programme. WFP continues to support capacity-strengthening initiatives, working with the Government to train staff in key ministries and departments. New forms of transfers in the school meals programme are envisaged in the new operation, in line with the new objectives of the 2017-2021 UNDAF.

  • In collaboration with FAO, WFP is supporting PNASE for the elaboration of the national school meals programme.