It also reduces their chances of having better incomes and better lives and for the children, the effects of poor diets have life-long consequences.

Mr Mphumuzi A. Sukati, a Senior Food and Nutrition Officer of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Regional Office for Africa, said the FAO said it stood ready to continue supporting Ghana in its effort to improve the food security and nutrition of school children and to strengthen the agri-food system.

Mr Sukati was speaking at the opening of a three-day Stakeholder workshop on School Meal Nutrition Guidelines and Standards in Ghana.

The FAO-World Food Programme (WFP) project entitled "School Food Nutrition Guidelines and Standards for Safeguarding Children and Adolescents' Right to Food" launched in Ghana in 2022 has finalized the initial phase of assessments in the selected districts of Kassena Nankana, Kintampo-North and Hohoe Municipal.

Preliminary results of these assessments, along with other evidence and existing nutrition criteria, will be presented to stakeholders in the workshop to agree on preliminary school meal nutrition guidelines and standards (NGS) which have been estimated following a global methodology developed by the FAO-WFP project.

The workshop's objective is to validate a set of school meal assessment findings, get stakeholder inputs for revising the preliminary school meal NGS, and test the applicability of the NGS FAO-WFP global methodology.

He said, "Only by working together we can address malnutrition and aspire to achieve the SDGs and leave no one behind."

He said better nutrition was one of the four pillars that guide FAO's work in all countries of the world and the other three pillars were Better Production, Better Environment and Better Life.

Mr Sukati said the number of hungry people had increased over the past seven years and in West and Central Africa the situation was also worsening, with about a four million increase in the number of people, who would be food insecure in the June-August 2024 lean season, compared to the November 2023 forecast.

He said this represented a fourfold increase over the last five years and the food crisis was being driven by economic issues such as rising inflation, currency devaluation, price volatility, stagnant production, and trade obstacles, which have been made worse by the current global conflicts.

"We are also not on track for achieving agreed nutrition targets by 2030. Malnutrition in West and Central Africa is very high, with over 16 million children under five acutely malnourished and more than 2 out of 3 households unable to afford healthy diets," he added.

He said in 2019, FAO launched its framework on school food and nutrition to increase the impact of its programmes and interventions.

The framework promotes a holistic approach based on four interlinked areas of work: promoting a healthy school food environment and adequate and safe meals; integrating effective food and nutrition education throughout the whole school system; stimulating inclusive procurement and value chains for school food; and creating an enabling political, legal, financial, and institutional environment.

He said having a holistic approach to school food and nutrition was necessary for having an impact and achieving progress.
"Working in silos or targeting punctual needs has seldom resulted in tangible improvements in the nutrition of children or their food practices," he said.

Establishing nutrition guidelines and standards for school meals lends itself in a nice way to the application of such a holistic approach as we will see in the coming three days.
He, however, said for such an approach to work, partnerships were key, and no one could do it all alone and needed all actors to work together.

Madam Barbara Tulu Clemens, WFP Country Representative in Ghana, said there should be collaboration to find solutions that work for the continent.
She said it was important to create diverse partnerships to deliver sustainable solutions for children on the continent.

The Country Representative urged the participants to take advantage of the workshop and provide their input into the final discussions.

Hajia Safia Mohammed, National Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), said currently the programme provides one hot nutritious food to over 3 million pupils in public primary & KG schools across the country.
She said the presence of GSEP was seen in all 261 Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies employing over 11,000 caterers in 11,000 primary schools in Ghana.

She said the country was ready to benefit from the World Bank assistance which was anticipated to enhance timely payments to caterers.
Although GSFP currently provides one meal per school-going day for about 3.9 million pupils in deprived areas of the country, the nutritional component was challenged.