Social Safety Nets in Fragile States: A Community Based

School Feeding Program in Togo

BBL – January 9, 2012

Elena Galliano and Giuseppe Zampaglione

Content • Context

• Design consideration and objectives of the program

• Institutional set up and operational features

• Findings on the nutritional, educational and economic benefits

• Operational performance and costs

• Scalability, Sustainability, Replicability

Country Context: Togo in 2008

Negative human development outcomes: • Food security: failure to feed children appropriate foods in quantity and quality • Health: lack of access to essential health services, water, and sanitation; • Education: children drop out of school and levels of poverty and vulnerability increase

Context for the design of the school feeding program

A. Households under stress due to flooding and food crisis --Children being particularly affected

B. Food insecurity level rising and leading to adopt negative coping mechanisms such as taking children out of school

C. Poor delivery of social services

D. Communities with a good level of social capital and self-organization

E. Existing informal network of meal providers in the school

Community school feeding program objectives

• Through an already existing informal network of school meal providers the program aim is to Improve children nutritional status and help poor households save on one or more meals/day.

• Promote daily attendance of children in school and improve their concentration;

• Contribute to income creation and inject cash in local communities;

• Increase community involvement in social service delivery and parents involvement in school matters.

Windows of opportunity of the CBSF

•Household savings

Project

• Approved in June 2008

• Started beginning of School year 2008-2009

• US$ 2,000,000 from the GFRP TF

• 84 schools the first year and 92 the second one

• Total of 20,000 children

Institutional set up

• Overall guidance of program: Ministry of Grassroots Development responsible for overall program and acts through a Steering Committee co-chaired with the Ministry of Primary Education;

• Program management and coordination:Technical Secretariat of the CDD project which liaise at the national and local levels

• Program implementation and daily on-site monitoring: regionally by NGOs and locally by PTAs. In each school a School Feeding Committee is set up

Implementation

• Targeting is geographic + vulnerability to floods,

exposure to food scarcity, and poverty ranking used for

CDD

• Main implementation mechanisms already in place through the existing informal system of the femmes-mamans and the role of PTAs

• Funds are transferred from Technical secretariat to NGOs which together with PTAs are making bi-weekly payments on the basis of # of lunches served

Implementation

• SF Committee: femmes- mamans, school authorities, PTA, regional NGO, and local representatives of the Ministry of Education

• Committee meets every 2 weeks to determine the meal plan and monitor quantities and quality of meals

• Femmes-mamans (6-10 /school) receive light training on hygienic norms + basic accounting –they have a Carnet sanitaire

Evaluation Objectives

• A - Assess (1) nutritional, (2) educational and (3) socio-economic benefits

• B - Analyze operational performance

• C - Analyze scalability and sustainability

Evaluation Methodology

• Quantitative survey of 1,050 HH in 35 villages using aregionally stratified multi-stage cluster sample.

• Qualitative assessment of perceptions of programbenefits. Sample includes 6 villages in 2 regions(Savanes and Maritime) - selected from quantitativesurvey sample. Main instruments were

Focus groups with female household members,femmes-mamans, students, and groups of communitymembers

Semi-structured interviews with small traders.

• Assessment of the strategic and administrative contextof social protection in Togo

Benefits: Overall CBSF project results

A1. Improved child nutrition with regular feeding of a varied meal; Increased wellbeing of children during lunch hours: they now can rest and socialize without having to walk back home several miles for meals; Improved nutrition of smaller children at home that benefit of larger portions

A2. Increased school attendance (especially for girls) and concentration during class

A3. Direct cash inflows, job creation and reinvestment of earnings into the local economy

A4. Parents learn to replicate hygiene rules at home; Communities supervise the program improving cohesion and social responsibility

A-1 Nutritional benefits

A-2 Educational benefits - Change in

Attendance rates (%)

A-3 Specific socio-economic benefits

Injection of resources in each rural community: approx. US$1,400/ month in year I and US$1,600/month in year II

Household savings on food expenditures of up to US$8–10 permonth are reinvested in productive activities or health andeducation

Employment for 600 women earning approx. USD 1-4/day

Professional categories positively affected are: the cooks (femmes-mamans), small traders, small-scale farmers, and suppliers of transportation

Potential for further economic impact when food for the school feeding program is entirely produced and procured locally

A3 - Areas of reinvestment of income or savings

Parents Femmes-mamans Traders

Village school fees Village school fees Households needs

Medicines, vaccines, other health related issues

Medicines, vaccines, other health related issues

Funeral and other special events

Clothes, Household utensils, moto-taxi for transport of children to school

Support to agriculture by payment of labor, fertilizers,share crops

Tontine to mobilize funds

Tontine to mobilize funds Production of local beer, bread

Fertilizers and purchase of breeding animals

Clothes and household utensils

B – Operational performance: costs

• Togo SF meals cost $ 0.31 cents/child/day = approx. $ 56/year (180 days). Tot program cost/child/year USD 64 * with full coverage

• Comparing other program in Africa: meal costs are higher BUT admin. costs much lower (15% versus 30-40%)

Why?

• No economies of scale. Food procurement is decentralized with purchases done individually with food bought fresh on nearest markets;

• Meals are abundant and rich in calories

• Admin low as they use pre-existing community mechanisms

B – Cost comparisons

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Kenya - 1.1m Lesotho - 0.4m Malawi - 0.2m Gambia - 0.1m Togo - 0.02m

Cost/child/year Standardized cost child/year

Country - Number of children per country

B- Operational performance: possible improvements

• Meal composition. Meals are nutritious (up to 1200 Kcal/meal) but specific content may be improved by introducing fortification and more vitamins

• Schedule of feeding. Meals are offered at 11 after several hours of class and walking to school. By contrast a lighter snack in the early morning might be more efficient in reducing short term hunger and improving concentration

• Individual food procurement is difficult to monitor. Meals composition is standardized and decided with the SF committee every week. But there is a certain degree of discretion due to the individual purchasing and different availability locally.

C - Is the program scalable?

Complex issue:

• Targeting needs refining (do all children need SF?)

• Not all areas enjoy community cohesion and social capital (this program seems to be difficult in urban areas…)

• Going national requires economies of scale and others types of more cost-efficient meals

C – Sustainability

• Improve dietary and nutritional aspects and introduce food fortification and de-worming

• Partner with GoT, UN agencies and NGOs to create additional synergies and continue the program - Need for buy-in from government with concrete funding and policy contributions

• Update the review of costs and comparisons with other similar programs in the regions, specifically those in fragile states

• Continue tracking educational outcomes

C - Is the program replicable in other food emergency contexts?

Yes, if:

Social capital and informal self-help mechanisms are available and can be used

Internal organization for fast start-up of the operations is present (Technical secretariat and NGOs)

Some local food production exists in order to guarantee efficient and consistent supply of food in the school year

Thank you!