A pen for a gun – realizing the potential of home-grown school-feeding for peace and security

The Need For Resilience

"Africa's failure to deliver on the Millenium Development Goals is closely tied to a lack of resilience. The data show contrasting progress in delivering the MDGs across Africa, particularly in poverty reduction and related key indicators, such as achieving primary education. Contrasting patterns emerge in SubSaharan Africa (SSA) and Northern Africa. While poverty levels in SSA decreased, they were not halved as targeted by the MDGs. Although the region made some progress, nearly 50 per cent of its population still lived on less than $1.25 a day by 2015. Northern Africa saw a more significant reduction, with the number of people living in extreme poverty approaching single digits by 2015.

Africa's struggle exposed fundamental structural issues that have hampered the continent's ability to tackle current and future challenges. With the global focus now shifting to the more ambitious SDGs, Africa’s progress remains a concern. Early monitoring of the SDGs reveals that the continent's lack of resilience continues to leave it susceptible to various vulnerabilities. An evaluation report by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDNS), which monitors and ranks countries' progress towards achieving the SDGs, highlights a sobering trend: among the 20 lowest-performing countries globally, 17 are African. The least-performing countries are also characterized by fragility, conflict, and high poverty levels. This trend is similar to the progress observed during the MDGs era. Africa's inability to build resilience during the MDG era has left it ill-equipped to deliver the more ambitious SDGs. Without significant improvements in resilience building across various sectors, Africa risks falling further behind in its development trajectory".

The Absence of The State

"Many African countries’ inability to fully achieve the MDGs was correlated with a lack of resilience stemming from a combination of state absence or weakness, lack of effective governance, and inadequate service provision. This connection between resilience, governance, and development outcomes is crucial for understanding Africa’s challenges in meeting global development targets. Overall, challenges to peace and development in Africa arise from a complex mix of external and internal factors. Historically, colonial administrations prioritized security control and revenue extraction, limiting state presence to economically or strategically important areas. This left vast territories ungoverned with minimal state involvement.

The Triple Paradox

The absence of effective state structures in Africa, stems from a complex interplay of resource-related challenges. Central to this problem is Africa's Triple Paradox.

The first paradox revolves around Africa’s financial constraints. Despite being resource-rich, the continent remains in debt distress, with many African countries heavily reliant on external financing mechanisms like debt relief and debt suspensions. This external dependence has stifled the capacity of states to generate their own revenue and build strong institutions, leaving them vulnerable to external shocks.

Africa is also rich in energy resources, from vast oil and gas reserves to a significant potential for renewable energy sources like solar and wind. Yet, paradoxically, the continent remains largely "in the dark." Around 600 million people in Africa lack access to reliable electricity, limiting industrialization and economic development.

The third paradox is Africa’s struggle with food insecurity despite its vast agricultural resources. Although Africa possesses large tracts of fertile land and a significant agricultural workforce, it faces frequent food shortages and lacks the infrastructure to connect smallholder farmers to markets.

Addressing these paradoxes requires capacitating the state to exercise its primary functions by enhancing its ability to deliver development and creating a systemic path to effective, impactful nation-building.

The Case for School Feeding

"Home-grown school feeding is a model designed to provide children with safe, diverse, and nutritious food sourced locally from smallholder farmers. During the MDG period, school feeding was redefined as a comprehensive development intervention in acknowledgement of its contribution to four dimensions of development: (1) education, by increasing enrollment, attendance and enhancing children's learning capacity; (2) nutrition, by addressing malnutrition and undernutrition; (3) health, thanks to complementary interventions provided in parallel such as deworming and vaccinations; and (4) gender equality, by reducing girls’ dropout rates dramatically.

Building on this, OSAA has identified four new dimensions to integrate into the HGSF value chain as an SDG stimulus: (1) Building stable societies by fostering peace and security; (2) Improving access to clean and renewable energy; (3) Promoting climate adaptation, and (4) Enhancing Africa’s food systems transformation.

These dimensions constitute targeted short-term interventions that catalyze development and accelerate progress towards achieving the SDGs and the African Union's Agenda 2063. They expand on the traditional dimensions of school feeding, including education, health and nutrition outcomes, localized agricultural systems and gender empowerment."