Kenya Named Fourth Co-Chair of Global School Meals Coalition

Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba announced that Kenya has been appointed the fourth co-chair of the Global School Meals Coalition alongside Brazil, Finland and France.

The appointment was confirmed at the opening of the third Ministerial Session of the School Meals Coalition held at the World Food Programme headquarters in Rome, Italy, on Wednesday, October 14.

Ogamba said Kenya is honoured to join the other co-chairs and pledged to work with them to champion national ownership, sustainable financing and greater cooperation, while keeping African experiences central to the coalition’s work.

He highlighted the government’s clean cooking programme as a potential source of carbon financing for school meals and noted ongoing negotiations with the World Food Programme on a debt-for-food conversion that would redirect savings from debt servicing to long-term food-security investment.

The cabinet secretary also urged governments to sustain political commitment and explore alternative funding mechanisms, citing Kenya’s own efforts to secure predictable financing for its school feeding programme.

Ogamba pointed to studies indicating that each dollar invested in feeding a child can generate up to nine dollars in social and economic returns, and described school meals as a strategic public investment that delivers education, health and social protection benefits.

He reminded that Kenya’s school feeding programme, which began in the 1980s with World Food Programme support, currently reaches about 3.2 million learners and aims to reach 10 million learners by 2030.

The Ministry of Education’s statement noted that Kenya hosted the coalition’s second Ministerial Meeting of the Task Force in Nairobi in 2024, where priorities such as sustainable financing, political commitment and evidence-based results were identified.

The Global School Meals Coalition, launched in 2021, now includes 113 countries, six regional bodies and more than 160 partners and seeks to ensure every child receives a nutritious meal at school.

Accompanying Ogamba at the Rome event were Kenya’s Ambassador to Italy, H.E. Fredrick Matwang’a, and Harun Yusuff, chief executive of the National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya.