PEP and Partners Chart Path for Sustainable, Inclusive School Feeding in Ethiopia

Policymakers, researchers, and development partners have validated diagnostic evidence on Ethiopia’s Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP) and agreed on an agenda for reform. Four shared priority areas and a confirmed intervention design will guide the next phase of the Inclusive and Sustainable Procurement and Cooking Models to Support Home-Grown School Feeding in Ethiopia initiative. 

PEP convened the validation workshop in Addis Ababa on 12 March, in collaboration with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the World Food Programme (WFP), with support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), bringing together more than 40 participants. 

Locally led, co-produced evidence 

The formal session opened with welcoming remarks from Dr. Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse of IFPRI-Ethiopia and a member of PEP's Board of Directors. He emphasised the importance of rigorous, policy-relevant evidence in strengthening Ethiopia's school feeding programme. Dr. Yohannes Wogasso of Ethiopia's Ministry of Education followed, highlighting the government's commitment to achieving universal school feeding coverage for all pre-primary and primary school children by 2030. He stressed the need for context-specific implementation approaches supported by solid empirical evidence. 

For PEP’s Executive Director Prof. Jane Mariara, their words resonated with what she had observed during site visits ahead of the workshop: strong stakeholder engagement across the system, from service providers to senior policymakers, and a widely shared recognition that rigorous evidence has a critical role to play in improving school feeding in Ethiopia. 

During her introductory remarks, Prof. Mariara outlined PEP’s core mandate and emphasised locally led evidence and co-production as the foundations of effective policy research. She highlighted that the inclusive and sustainable school feeding procurement initiative grounds its work in precisely this approach, positioning stakeholders not as passive recipients of findings but as active collaborators. 

“At PEP, we hold the belief that co-producing evidence with those directly involved in policy processes maximizes its impact. Our work on this initiative reflects this approach, bringing together government, researchers, and implementers as active collaborators in shaping solutions,” she said.  

She framed the diagnostic study as a practical decision-support tool, intended to directly inform reforms in cost-effectiveness, sustainability, gender inclusion, and environmental performance of the HGSFP. 

What the evidence reveals 

The diagnostic analysis—presented by one of the project co-leads Dr. Halefom Nigus—drew on quantitative surveys across 34 schools, qualitative interviews with 65 participants including regional and national officials and development partners, and observational assessments of kitchen infrastructure. It assessed four procurement models across Ethiopian regions—centralized, decentralized, catering, and WFP-supported systems—and highlighted system-wide challenges common to all modalities. 

Food quality and local linkages remain inconsistent. Ad hoc purchasing weakens the school-to-farmer connections that a home-grown programme depends on. While the HGSFP has strong potential to support local agricultural markets, integration with local farmers remains limited and uneven. 

Gender inequity runs deeper than it first appears. All school cooks are women, yet only around 20% of suppliers are. Women carry the operational weight of the programme while capturing very little of its economic value. Structural barriers hold them back: limited access to finance and credit, constrained land ownership, and insufficient procurement knowledge. 

Cooking infrastructure is a silent constraint. Every school in the study relies on firewood and traditional three-stone stoves. The health consequences are measurable: 85% of cooks report eye irritation, 71% report headaches or dizziness, and 56% report coughing or breathing difficulties. Traditional stoves also place significant additional labour burdens on women cooks and limit the diversity and quality of meals they can prepare. 

Financing is structurally fragile. 72% of schools reported a funding deficit. Most cope by reducing meal portion sizes or calling on parents for contributions, a practice that places the burden of programme sustainability on the families it is meant to serve. 

Participants engaged with the findings through a multi-stakeholder panel discussion on navigating the complexities of HGSFP implementation, featuring representatives from the Ministry of Education, IFPRI, WFP, and the Ethiopian Public Health Institute. The discussion highlighted operational challenges across diverse contexts, the need for stronger institutional coordination, and opportunities to enhance local sourcing and farmer integration. 

Four priorities for reform 

Co-project lead Dr. Eleni Yitbarek presented approaches for refining intervention pathways from the diagnostic findings. She emphasised the importance of prioritisation, sequencing, and continuous learning. 

Through co-creation sessions, participants converged on four priority areas for the next phase of the research initiative. 

Structured local procurement: Move from ad hoc purchasing to predictable, transparent arrangements. Strengthen links between schools and local farmers, particularly women producers, through aggregation and structured market access for smallholders. 

Gender inclusion across the value chain: Enable women to participate not only as cooks but also as certified suppliers. Address barriers through training, access to finance, and procurement rules that actively reduce structural barriers. Support women-led enterprises and cooperatives. 

Clean cooking and kitchen infrastructure: Transition to efficient institutional cookstoves, reducing the health burden on women cooks while expanding the range and quality of meals schools can offer. Improve ventilation, water access, storage, and kitchen safety. 

Sustainable financing: Address delayed fund disbursement and over-reliance on community contributions. Identify durable financing options for fresh food procurement and infrastructure investment. 

From validation to implementation 

The workshop laid out the intervention design for the research initiative’s next phase. The pilot tests two intervention arms. The first focuses on inclusive fresh food procurement and women's supplier training and certification. The second combines these with the installation of improved institutional cookstoves to test whether addressing both procurement and cooking constraints together generates stronger outcomes. This two-arm design will generate rigorous comparative evidence to guide future policy and investment. 

WFP Ethiopia will manage execution in targeted areas, working in coordination with the Ministry of Education and regional government bodies. WFP-supported schools have been prioritised for piloting, given their operational flexibility, established monitoring systems, and concentration of vulnerable populations. 

Pilot evidence will inform future scale-up and policy reform across other HGSFP modalities. 

“The goal of this work is to generate actionable, evidence-based recommendations that guide more effective and inclusive school feeding systems,” said Prof. Mariara. 

Dr. Edidah L. Ampaire of the IDRC congratulated the project team for their organisation of a very productive and engaging workshop. Meanwhile, Prof. Mariara appreciated the stakeholders’ active participation in the validation workshop. She said, "We sincerely appreciate and thank you for your time and contributions that made this event a great success.”  

About the initiative 

The Inclusive and Sustainable Procurement and Cooking Models to Support Home-Grown School Feeding in Ethiopia initiative is led by PEP, in partnership with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and World Food Programme (WFP) Ethiopia. PEP’s lead researchers work alongside IFPRI senior researchers. WFP Ethiopia serves as local implementation partner, executing interventions on the ground in coordination with the Ministry of Education and regional government bodies. 

Running from 2024 to 2028, ISPCM uses participatory, co-production approaches to evaluate procurement models, pilot inclusive practices, and assess the impact of cleaner cooking technologies. The initiative designs its findings from the outset to shape policy at local and national level. 

The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) funds the Inclusive and Sustainable Procurement and Cooking Models to Support Home-Grown School Feeding Programs project under its Catalyzing Climate Resilient, Inclusive, and Sustainable Procurement (CRISP) initiative. CRISP seeks to catalyse the equitable adoption of sustainable practices throughout school meal procurement systems, with the potential to drive broader positive change in local and national food systems, including agroecological practices. At the workshop, Dr. Ampaire provided a virtual overview of CRISP, situating the school feeding procurement project within this wider agenda for lasting food system reform.