How Effective are Food for Education Programs? A Critical Assessment of the Evidence from Developing Countries

Food for education (FFE) programs, including meals served in school and take-home rations conditional on school attendance, have received renewed attention recently as a policy instrument for achieving the Millennium Development Goals of universal primary education and the reduction of hunger in developing countries. This review study presents a rationale for FFE programs and undertakes a critical assessment of the causal evidence on the impact of FFE programs on education participation and attainment, learning, cognitive development, and nutrition. Despite a large literature on the impact of FFE programs, many studies suffer from methodological shortcomings that limit the quality of their contribution. Results from the most careful studies show that in-school meals programs improve primary school attendance of enrolled students where initial attendance was low. Potential impacts on school participation by children not previously enrolled in school are not well known. There is mixed evidence that school meals can improve performance on math and literacy tests and they may improve cognitive development, depending on the type of food provided, the size of the food rations, and program duration. Several well-designed controlled trials have shown that school meals have a positive impact on nutrition outcomes, though these results have received less support from field trials in more typical settings. There are few studies of scaled-up take-home ration programs, but one study from Bangladesh shows a significant impact on school participation. In general, FFE programs have larger impacts in areas with low school participation and on children with greater initial malnutrition. The impacts of the programs may also be higher when combined with complementary programs to improve schools or child health