Notícias
Brazil co-chairs Global School Meals Coalition
Brazil is the third country to chair the Global School Meals Coalition, alongside France and Finland. The announcement was made during the opening of the coalition's first global meeting, held in Paris on October 18th and 19th. Ambassador Maria Laura da Rocha, Secretary-General of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, participated in the event, which brought together more than 80 countries.
In her speech, the Secretary-General said that, as co-chair of the School Meals Coalition, Brazil will intensify international cooperation efforts to promote access to healthy and nutritious meals in schools in all countries. Brazil also announced that it will host the next global meeting of the coalition, scheduled for 2025. “Eradicating hunger in the world is a political problem that calls for political solutions, and we need to work faster to achieve the zero hunger goal,” said Ms. Maria Laura da Rocha. “In this sense, providing adequate school meals is one of the most important long-term structural strategies to address food and nutritional insecurity,” she added.
Coalition
In 2021, in response to the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on school children, governments established and now lead the Global School Meals Coalition.
The coalition is an initiative of governments and partner institutions with the objective of boosting actions capable of restoring, improving, and expanding food and education systems, as well as supporting the recovery from the pandemic and boosting actions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To date, the list of members gathers more than 80 countries.
The president of the National Fund for Education Development (FNDE), Ms. Fernanda Pacobahyba, participated in discussions during the session on regional school feeding networks of the coalition’s global meeting. She underscored Brazil's commitment to eradicating hunger and promoting food security across the world, with a focus on school feeding. “The National School Feeding Program is an international reference for intersectoral public policies on education, food and nutritional security, and local sustainable development. In Brazil, school meals are a right guaranteed in the Constitution, with financial resources provided for in the annual budget of the Ministry of Education; these meals are provided free-of-charge and universally to 40 million students on a daily basis," the president of FNDE said.
Mr. Daniel Balabán, Director of the Centre of Excellence against Hunger of the World Food Program (WFP) in Brazil also participated in the event.
FNDE and WFP are ABC's implementing partners in school feeding projects and programs in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.