Global School Meals at the Next Frontier: Why Economic Evidence Matters

School meals now reach more children than any other social program in history, but sustaining the progress in low- and middle-income countries will require new evidence and smarter solutions.

While investment in international development languishes, global support for the health and well-being of schoolchildren and adolescents has surged. School health and nutrition programs have become the world’s largest social safety net and a near-ubiquitous, government-led solution to sustaining the wellbeing of young people. Increasingly, they are emerging as the essential counterpart to free, compulsory, universal education.

This week, the 109 member countries of the School Meals Coalition, created by the countries themselves in response to the massive disruption caused by COVID-19 school closures, will meet in Fortaleza, Brazil, to reflect on lessons learned since the founding of the Coalition in 2021. A new report launched this week by the UN World Food Programme, The State of School Feeding Worldwide, shows that school meals are now provided daily to 466 million children globally, an increase of 80 million since the pandemic. 

The African continent has experienced the greatest gains, with nearly 20 million more children covered. Over the last two years, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar and Rwanda have expanded their coverage between 1.5 and 6-fold, and the two largest programs, in Nigeria and South Africa, each now target some 10 million children daily. Several countries have launched national school meal programs for the first time, including Canada, Indonesia and Ukraine. Global investment in school meals programs stands at US$84 billion annually, with 99 percent coming from domestic budgets.

On the eve of this summit, the pressing questions are: how can governments and donors ensure these programs continue to deliver at scale? And how can the research community best support the next phase of the global effort to reach more children with nutritious school meals?

From charity to public policy

The transformation of school meals from welfare and humanitarian interventions to long-term public policy is one of the quiet revolutions in global development. What was once viewed as a temporary relief measure is now entrenched in national systems, backed by legislation, budget lines, and institutional frameworks. 

In countries like India, school meals are a constitutionally protected right. In others, they are embedded in national nutrition and education strategies, delivered through ministries rather than aid agencies. This institutionalization reflects strong political commitment. For most low- and middle-income countries, school meal programs are no longer pilots, they are public goods - like roads or clinics.

These domestically funded programs use different modalities. The two largest national programs in the world, in India and Brazil (where more than 100 million and 40 million children respectively are fed daily) are free and universal, as are two of the oldest success stories in Finland and Sweden. The third largest program, in China, is based on what Sir Michael Marmot terms “proportionate universalism”, and aims to be free to all in need. This is a model that is also pursued in Japan, most of the 26 countries implementing the European Union Child Guarantee, and the latest manifestation of the UK national program.

Multiple wins on one plate

Governments support school meals not for a single purpose but because they deliver wide-ranging benefits across education, health, and social protection. Evidence shows that every dollar invested can generate USD$7–$35 in returns.

School meals fuel student learning by boosting enrolment, attendance, and concentration—often rivalling other education investments in cost-effectiveness. They also support child development during the “next 7,000 days,” a critical but under-researched stage when nutrition shapes puberty, brain development, and long-term health outcomes. 

By improving daily diets, school meals reduce reliance on ultra-processed foods and help prevent obesity and non-communicable diseases, making them one of the few proven interventions to shape lifelong nutrition. These long term outcomes are particularly important as cardiometabolic disease in later life is the main cause of mortality in most countries, and its management often the largest cost to the health sector.

Beyond the classroom, school meals serve as the world’s largest safety net, reaching more children than any other social program and disproportionately benefiting the poorest households. They strengthen local economies through home-grown procurement, creating reliable markets for smallholder farmers and empowering women in particular. In low-income settings, a meal at school can be the decisive factor keeping girls in education, with ripple effects on maternal health and intergenerational outcomes.

At the same time, climate-smart menus and local sourcing can cut food system emissions dramatically, positioning school meals as a powerful lever for greener and more sustainable food systems. By providing children with models of sustainable and healthy foods at school, and supporting this with food education, the world is changing children’s relationship with food and helping develop life-long dietary preferences that simultaneously promote personal health, planetary health and agroecological/regenerative approaches to food production.

Preserving fragile gains in a volatile world

Despite the progress of the last few decades, the gains in many lower-income countries remain fragile. Half of the programs in low- and lower-middle-income countries report insufficient funding to meet targets, while 63 percent are underfunded compared to the cost of a healthy lunch in the respective country. Chronic underfunding often translates into insufficient quantities, irregular provision, and low-quality meals. This not only reduces effectiveness, but it can erode public trust and political backing.

Meanwhile, external shocks such as food price inflation, climate-related disasters, conflict and fiscal crises can quickly unravel years of effort. When budgets tighten and price levels rise, school meal programs often see their allocation eroded by inflation, even though they remain one of the most politically visible and socially valued services.

This fragility calls for new thinking around sustainability. The next frontier in the global expansion of school meals will be defined by the quest for practical and evidence-based solutions for the financing and operational challenges. This is what will truly solidify the transformation of school meals from donor-driven humanitarian programs into the permanent levers of national human development and social protection policies.

Leveraging economic evidence to sustain progress

We present a sample of policy-relevant economic research questions in Box 1, drawn from our research and engagement with policymakers, that are likely to shape the next-generation evidence agenda for the global school meals community. Sustaining progress will require that evidence keeps pace with governments’ ambitions and practical challenges.

Box 1. Next-Generation Evidence Agenda for Sustainable and Resilient School Meal Programs

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1. How can countries design financing and governance systems that make school meal programs both sustainable and equitable?

   Sustaining school meal programs requires broadening the funding base, but the puzzle is how to do so without undermining equity. This raises questions about the role of parents, local governments, and innovative financing in sharing responsibility without excluding vulnerable groups. Governance structures must also overcome sectoral silos to align education, health, agriculture, and social protection goals, highlighting the challenge of what institutional designs make this possible. At the global level, donors face the unresolved question of how to act both as catalysts for innovation and as insurers against shocks, ensuring that coverage and quality are protected in times of crisis.

    

2. How can the full social value of school meals be measured to strengthen the investment case?

   Although school meals clearly provide benefits beyond nutrition, the analytical challenge is how to capture their wider social value - such as supporting working parents, complementing mainstream education reforms, or reducing vulnerability to shocks. This raises questions about how their impacts differ across groups and contexts, and what role they should play in the broader scheme of human development and social protection policies targeting children and their families.

    

3. Which operational models deliver school meals most effectively and at scale?

   Countries use diverse program designs to achieve success. The conundrum is to identify which of these models can optimize efficiency, equity, quality, and scalability simultaneously. For example, research must unpack how digital monitoring and community accountability improve outcomes, and what explains the success of countries that reach nationwide, high-quality coverage at relatively low cost. The answers need to be sought through better understanding of real national programs implemented at scale, and by analyzing data across contexts to identify common best practices and transferable lessons that can inform future policy and program design.

Creating this evidence is not just a matter for individual countries. The research, tools, and lessons generated can serve as global public goods, available to most programs in low and middle-income countries regardless of their size or stage of development. A shared investment in high-quality data, case studies and comparative evidence would allow countries to benchmark performance, adapt proven innovations, and avoid repeating costly mistakes. Importantly, global evidence on sustainable financing models along with robust cost-benefit analyses that capture the full social returns of school meals, can help governments and donors make better-informed investment decisions. By making the economic case clearer, such evidence can also strengthen political commitment and protect programs in times of fiscal stress.

Generating rigorous evidence on these next generation questions and converting the new knowledge into feasible solutions will be essential to turn today’s fragile gains into durable, resilient, and equitable school meal programs worldwide.