Feeding Severely Wasted Children in School: Examining Processes in DepED`s School Feeding Program

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Education and learning depend on good health and nutrition, especially among young children. Thus, investments have been made for these two forms of human capital development through food for education (FFE) programs. In the Philippines, the Department of Education (DepED) has been conducting FFE programs since 1997. Its current FFE program, the School-Based Feeding Program (SBFP), has for its main objectives the rehabilitation of severely wasted children to normal nutrition status and the improvement of classroom attendance of these children, as well as that of their health and nutrition status and behavior.

This Policy Note presents the findings of the process evaluation of the SBFP. In particular, the evaluation examined the processes undertaken by the DepED in the SBFP and complementary activities during SY 2013-2014, when DepED targeted 40,361 beneficiaries enrolled in 814 schools located in 20 provinces and eight cities. The results can provide inputs to improving current and future implementation of the SBFP, which was expanded in SY 2014-2015 to include all severely wasted children enrolled in public elementary schools. The Note finds that while the program has been managed well, there are implementation issues that need to be addressed, and policies that may require adjustments.