[{"bbox": [158, 153, 1058, 203], "category": "Text", "text": "children moving to schools further away from their home within their district because of the pulling effect of school meals."}, {"bbox": [158, 218, 1059, 351], "category": "Text", "text": "Implementing school feeding in Malawi is fragmented across different models and implementers and largely depending on external funding. There is need for a strong multi-sector partnership in support of the establishment of a wider national school meals programme, on the basis of the homegrown school feeding model. This will require gradual targets for expansion and progressive increase in public funding."}, {"bbox": [147, 392, 459, 423], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## 3.5 The Intervention Logic"}, {"bbox": [147, 434, 1084, 621], "category": "Text", "text": "The underlying intervention logic for this Action is that human and economic development are strongly interlinked. A child without adequate nutrition in the first 8000 days will struggle in her education path, and her productive capacity of adult worker will be affected. At the same time, households need stable income to be able to adequately feed and send their children to school. Most of Malawian households rely on agriculture for their income. Homegrown school feeding model represent a win-win opportunity for children and farming households in poor rural areas of Malawi, tackling the demand and supply side for nutritious foods, as well as the need to increase income opportunities for smallholders."}, {"bbox": [147, 632, 1084, 925], "category": "Text", "text": "The overall objective of the Action is to ensure that pre-primary and primary school children in targeted districts of Malawi have healthy and diversified diets, while boosting sustainable agriculture production and market opportunities for smallholder farmers, with a focus on women. On the one hand, the daily provision of a nutritious meal incentivises families to send their children to school, especially their girls, and allows pupils to learn better. On the other hand, schools will source the meals' ingredients locally and will become a stable market outlet for smallholder farmers operating in the area. The Action will improve access to education while retaining children in school, and will primarily benefit young girls, who are more at risks to drop out. This will contribute to increase the rate of primary school completion and the access to secondary education. The Action will also increase income generating opportunities for smallholders, mostly parents of the pupils receiving school meals, by triggering a virtuous circle of community socio-economic empowerment."}, {"bbox": [147, 937, 1084, 1124], "category": "Text", "text": "The main assumptions of the Actions are that i) political commitment to universal school meals remains high and that progressively trigger increased public finances; ii) homegrown school feeding model remains the preferred modality to provide meals to schools. The EU will engage Government in regular and structured policy dialogue around these priorities. Furthermore, the Action will be accompanied by evidence collection and analysis (randomised control study), providing solid evidence on impact of school meals on nutrition, education and economic status of targeted beneficiaries. This will feed valuable and objective information into the policy dialogue."}, {"bbox": [147, 1135, 1084, 1349], "category": "Text", "text": "The Action will build on the current Tsolata school meals programme, which reaches 216 primary schools, 306,000 children, and supports about 20,000 smallholder farmers. The Action will expand to three more districts and reach 400,000 primary school children and 13,000 pre-school children in 416 schools and 120 ECD centres. It will also reach out to about 20,000 smallholder farmers, thus increasing demand for produce as well as coverage of the programme. The geographical targeting, in collaboration with Ministry of Education, takes into consideration education performance indicators, such as drop-out and repetition rates; vulnerability trends based on poverty rates, food security and nutrition indicators; and coverage of school feeding programmes to ensure equitable distribution of resources."}, {"bbox": [147, 1359, 1084, 1520], "category": "Text", "text": "The Action takes a two-pronged approach, working at district level with school staff and pupils and smallholder farmers, and also strengthening capacities of the Ministry in charge of school meals and supporting evidence-based policy decision. The Action will support schools in the organisation and regular delivery of nutritious school meals in selected ECD centres and primary schools (SO1), boosting the demand side for food products, and at the same time it will work with smallholders farmers to increase supply and meet the demand (in terms of quantity and of food quality, SO2)."}, {"bbox": [147, 1531, 1084, 1612], "category": "Text", "text": "The Action will furthermore build upon other initiatives in the agriculture and nutrition sectors. This means that the Action will work with smallholders groups at a relatively high stage of development, because of the support received from other EU programmes. The action will strengthen synergies with"}, {"bbox": [966, 1681, 1082, 1705], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 16 of 26"}]