[{"bbox": [145, 151, 1084, 259], "category": "Text", "text": "**food for all**). Furthermore, Malawi is joining the global “School Meals Coalition: Nutrition, Health and Education for Every Child”, which was launched during the Food Systems Summit to improve the quality and expand the scale of school meals programmes globally as a platform to reach communities, simultaneously transforming food, education, social protection and health systems."}, {"bbox": [145, 269, 1085, 562], "category": "Text", "text": "Finally, the Government of Malawi has identified homegrown school feeding as a preferred model for school meals' sustainability as it supports both education outcomes and local agricultural production and enhanced community participation. The Action contributes to the implementation of the **National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP, 2018-2023)**, in particular its Intervention Area 4 of diversification, availability and consumption of nutritious foods, which foresee smallholder farmers linked to food purchase for institutional feeding programmes. Moreover, the Action will address some of the critical aspects identified by the NAIP as limiting farmer's capacities to break the poverty cycle. These are post-harvest losses, limited access to inputs, lack of market access and weak farmer organisations. The Action is in line with the **Malawi 2063 pillar 1** of agricultural productivity and commercialisation and it will contribute to the graduation of subsistence farmers to a more commercial model of production."}, {"bbox": [145, 573, 1084, 708], "category": "Text", "text": "The Action contributes to the Global Gateway priorities of education and climate. It follows the Farm-to-Fork approach of the Green Deal and contributes to the **EC Nutrition Action Plan commitments**. The action will contribute to SDG 2 (Zero hunger), SDG 3 (Good health and well-being), SDG 4 (Good education), SDG 5 (Gender equality), SDG 8 (Decent work and economic growth), SDG 13 (Climate action), SDG 15 (Life on Land) and SDG 17 (Partnership to achieve the Goals)."}, {"bbox": [145, 717, 1085, 933], "category": "Text", "text": "With this Action, the EU will become the main partner (in financial terms) for Government in the area of school meals and will reinforce the existing engagements in nutrition (Afikepo programme), agricultural diversification and support to smallholders (Kulima programme) and social protection (social cash transfers). With an expansion to school meals to ECD centres, the Action follows the MIP's priority of empowering women and girls throughout the lifecycle. Since it contributes to primary school completion, it also lays the foundations for the EU support to secondary education. Finally, as **part of the TEI Green Growth**, following a food systems approach, the Action will develop synergies with other nutrition interventions as well as activities in support of sustainable farming and agribusiness."}, {"bbox": [145, 945, 403, 976], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## 2.2 Problem Analysis"}, {"bbox": [145, 986, 1084, 1148], "category": "Text", "text": "Agriculture in Malawi is largely dependent on rains and characterised by low productivity, low levels of improved farm input use, limited private sector investments and low mechanisation. Food production is further challenged by inadequate post-harvest storage and processing, with post-harvest loss estimated between 10-20 % along the maize value-chain alone. Environmental degradation also contributes to a higher exposure and vulnerability to extreme weather events which have increased in frequency and negatively affects agriculture."}, {"bbox": [145, 1158, 1084, 1346], "category": "Text", "text": "More than half of the population of Malawi lives in poverty and over 20% of the population is considered ultra-poor and unable to meet essential food needs. Every year, at least one million people is unable to meet basic food needs during the lean season period (rising to 3.7 million people for the lean season of 2023). Despite improvements in addressing malnutrition in recent years, high levels of stunting persist and affects roughly one out of three children under five years of age. Dietary diversity for infants and young children is poor, leading to nutrient deficiency and increased health risks. The Cost of Hunger report estimated that Malawi loses 10.3 % of GDP annually, because of hunger."}, {"bbox": [145, 1356, 1084, 1438], "category": "Text", "text": "Malawi is ranked 142 out of 174 countries in the World Bank's Human Capital Index. A child born in Malawi today will be 41 percent less productive when she grows up as she could be if she enjoyed complete education and full health."}, {"bbox": [145, 1449, 1084, 1557], "category": "Text", "text": "Although the provision of Early Childhood Development (ECD) is an important foundation for first grade of primary education, gross enrolment ratio for preschool shows that only 31 percent of eligible children aged 3–5 attends an ECD centre. Many children still enter primary education without cognitive, emotional, social and physical stimulation that lays the foundation for future education."}, {"bbox": [976, 1680, 1082, 1706], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 5 of 26"}]