Ghana Leads The Way With Launch Of Innovative School Meals Planner

3rd October 2014 Johannesburg, South Africa----An innovative free School Meals Planner tool trialed and developed in Ghana was launched at a special plenary session of a leading global school feeding conference in Johannesburg. The tool, for the first time, enables users to plan and create nutritionally balanced and fully costed school meals using locally available food.

Developed by Imperial College London's Partnership for Child Development and trialled by the Ghana School Feeding Programme the School Meals Planner was unveiled at the Global Child Nutrition Forum 2014. The chance to learn from and replicate the success of the Ghana was warmly welcomed by the Forum's 250 school feeding experts, including 12 state Ministers, drawn from 40 countries.

Creating a nutritionally balanced school menu using local ingredients is not an easy thing to do, especially when you are working within a tight budget. This is doubly true when the children relying on your school meals are from communities where food insecurity is high and malnutrition and anaemia are common conditions.

The School Meals Planner is being implemented by the Ghana School Feeding Programme who are using it to create nutritionally balanced school meals with food procured from local smallholder farmers for some of the 1.6 million Ghanaian schoolchildren fed by the programme every school day.

The tool, which is available both online and offline, employs gingerbread men to show visually if a meal is meeting the recommended daily intake of nutrients as identified by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Health Organization.

By linking local market prices for the ingredients, the planner shows the user the actual cost of each meal. With this information, programme managers are able to create accurate and realistic school meal budgets.

Speaking at the launch, the Partnership for Child Development's Executive Director, Dr Lesley Drake said, 'School meals play a vital role in ensuring children have a healthy nutritionally balanced diet. This free tool means that you don't need to be a nutritionist to create balanced healthy meals, anyone can do it.'

The school meals planner also works as an information access point for smallholder farmers so they know what foods to supply to the schools and as a nutrition educational resource for schools to learn about healthy eating.

Victoria Kuma-Mintah, Deputy National Coordinator for Monitoring and Evaluation, Ghana School Feeding Programme said, 'One of the strengths of PCD's Meal Planner is that it allows us to select nutritious local dishes using local ingredients which we know our farmers are producing. '

To ensure schoolchildren have nutritionally balanced diets the School Meals Planner is designed to work in conjunction with community focused nutrition and hygiene education programmes and with 'handy measures' – every day measuring utensils which caterers can use to accurately recreate balanced meals. This integrated school nutrition programme is the result of support from Dubai Cares.

Kate Quarshie, Acting Director of Nutrition, Ghana Health Service, said, 'This School Meals Planner means the Government are better able to reach their targets on child nutrition.'

She continued, 'It actually quantifies ingredients which together with the handy measures can guide the caterers to prepare accurate nutritious meals rather than relying on their own estimations. '

Following the success of the School Meals Planner in Ghana, the tool will be rolled out in other countries to ensure that more children are able to enjoy health and nutritious hot school meals.

To find out more and to plan your own meal visit www.hgsf-global.org

The Partnership for Child Development (PCD)
Based at Imperial College London, PCD is committed to improving the education, health and nutrition of school-age children and youth in low and middle income countries through health and nutrition interventions implemented through schools. Since 2010, PCD has supported sub-Saharan African governments to implement Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programmes. These programmes described as a win-win for children and farmers alike procure food for school meals from local smallholders so that children are more able to learn in schools and farmers are secured of a livelihood. The School Meals Planner, with funding from Dubai Cares, has been developed as part of PCD's support to government-led HGSF programmes.

www.schoolsandhealth.org / www.hgsf-global.org / www.child-development.org

Ghana School Feeding Programme (GFSP)
The Ghanaian Government have implemented Ghana' s Home Grown School Programme (GSFP) since late 2005 when it was initially piloted in 10 schools. Since then it has progressively grown to serve over 1.6 million children in 4,000 public schools across all 170 districts in Ghana. As a strategy to increase domestic food production, household incomes and food security in deprived communities, the GSFP has gained huge popularity among the Ghanaian public, alongside a strong commitment from the government. GSFP coordination and implementation is undertaken by a National Secretariat, with programme oversight provided by Ghana's Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.

www.hgsf-global.org/ghana

Global Child Nutrition forum (GCNF) 2014
The annual Global Child Nutrition Forum unites leaders from developing countries for five days of intensive training, technical assistance and planning, all directed toward establishing country-operated sustainable school feeding programs. By sharing their insights, experiences and challenges, an informal worldwide alliance of leaders dedicated to advancing school feeding has evolved. As a result, the Forum has become a global catalyst for school feeding development.The forum is taking place from 29 September 2014 to 03 October 2014 at The Emerald Resort in Vanderbijlpark– Gauteng – South Africa and is organised by the Global Child Nutrition Foundation and the World Food Programme Centre of Excellence against Hunger

www.gcnf2014.org/

VICTORIA KUMA-MINTAH (SECOND LEFT), KATE QUARSHIE (MIDDLE), LESLEY DRAKE (2ND RIGHT) AT SCHOOL MEALS PLANNER LAUNCH, JOHANNESBURG. IMAGE CREDIT PARTNERSHIP FOR CHILD DEVELOPMENT