NAIROBI, Kenya Jun 29 – The Zambian government has signed a landmark partnership with Food4Education aimed at strengthening the country’s national school feeding programme and expanding its reach from 4.6 million to 5.6 million learners by the end of 2026.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed between the Ministry of Education and the Kenya-based not-for-profit social enterprise, establishes a long-term technical cooperation framework designed to improve the delivery and sustainability of government-led school feeding.
Under the agreement, Food4Education will provide technical support across five strategic areas: policy and institutional coordination, programme design and operational systems, data and digital innovation, budgeting and financing, and infrastructure development.
The partnership comes as Zambia seeks to strengthen its education and nutrition systems following the implementation of its Free Education Policy in 2022, which brought an estimated two million additional learners into public schools and significantly increased demand for school meals.
Permanent Secretary for Education Services Dr. Kelvin Mambwe described universal school feeding as a strategic national investment.
“Universal school feeding is an investment in our children’s futures and our nation’s economic growth. This partnership with Food4Education helps us strengthen the systems that turn this investment into long-term returns for Zambia,” he said.
The initiative aims to improve children’s nutrition and learning outcomes while supporting local agriculture and creating employment opportunities across the food value chain.
According to Food4Education, school feeding programmes can generate as much as $20 in economic returns for every dollar invested, while Africa loses an estimated 16.5 percent of its Gross Domestic Product annually due to childhood hunger.
Food4Education Founder and Chief Executive Officer Wawira Njiru said Zambia was demonstrating how African governments can build sustainable social programmes using domestic resources.
“Zambia is doing something that the continent needs to see. It is putting its own treasury and the weight of several ministries behind its own children, building school feeding as economic infrastructure that strengthens agriculture, creates dignified livelihoods, builds human capital, and grows the economy,” Njiru said.
She added that Food4Education’s role would be limited to providing technical expertise to strengthen government systems rather than implementing the feeding programme itself.
The organisation brings more than 14 years of experience supporting government-led school feeding initiatives in Kenya, where it has served over 200 million meals. It also operates Tap2Eat, a digital platform that manages millions of school feeding transactions annually while connecting thousands of smallholder farmers to reliable markets.
Officials say the partnership will complement Zambia’s existing school feeding ecosystem by enhancing efficiency, digitalisation and financial sustainability, while leaving programme implementation under government leadership.
The agreement also positions Zambia as a growing leader in school feeding across Africa ahead of the Global Child Nutrition Forum, which the country will host in November 2026. The international gathering is expected to bring together governments, development partners and practitioners to share best practices on school feeding and child nutrition.
Education experts say effective school feeding programmes not only improve attendance and learning outcomes but also stimulate local economies by creating stable markets for farmers and employment opportunities for women and young people.
