School Feeding in Ghana!

This summer, I worked with the Ghanaian government on their school feeding program as part of Haas’ International Business Development (IBD) course. The Ghana School Feeding Program is an amazing program that provides lunches to over 975 primary schools in Ghana to over 400,000 students. By 2010, it is projected that the program will serve 2,900 schools and approximately 1.04 million primary school children.

The program was launched in 2005 with the goal of contributing to poverty reduction and increased food security in Ghana. The three key objectives of the program are to 1) reduce hunger and malnutrition by providing all primary and kindergarten students in beneficiary schools a nutritious meal each school day 2) increase school enrollment, attendance, and retention and 3) boost domestic food production by sourcing GSFP meals locally, and providing a sustainable market for local food producers in the community. These objectives align closely with the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) surrounding hunger, poverty, and primary education.

While the program has been extremely successful, there are some operational areas that need attention. Our project was threefold, and involved sizing the market created by the feeding program for food staples such as maize, cassava and rice; optimizing meals given price trends and nutritional content; and identifying points in the value chain where small farmers can capture more of the market. We worked with the Ghanaian government and a number of international development organizations including the UNDP, WFP, IFCD, Technoserve to identify trends and opportunities for local farmers to be more involved in the school feeding program.

The experience was awesome. Not only because we were able to provide a valuable analysis, but also because I was able to work closely with two other MBA students in an environment which was extremely challenging!