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McGovern Dole Food for Education Program in Cameroon

Midway into 2008 -2009 school year in Cameroon, pupils, teachers, parents and communities at large in 50 select villages in Jakiri, Kumbo, Noni, Oku and Nkum sub-divisions of the Bui in the North West Region of Cameroon receive the 21 person workforce of the McGovern Food for Education Project for Cameroon.

Nascent Solutions is the recipient agency for the USDA 2008 McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program (FFE) for Cameroon. We are working in partnership with Counterpart International to implement the three-year U.S. Department of Agriculture funded FFE program in Bui Division. The goal of the project is to improve access to primary education, especially for girls, improve the health and nutrition of primary school children and children under 5. The project benefits 22,000 children and communities in 50 poor villages in the Jakiri, Kumbo, OKU, Noni and Nkum sub-divisions of Bui division in the North West province of Cameroon.

The goal of the program is to contribute to the objectives set by the Government of Cameroon (GOC) to achieve the target of universal enrollment by the year 2015 by improving child nutrition, food security and caretaker practices in health and nutrition.

The North West Province is one of Cameroon’s poorest regions but remains highly underserved. Donor attention in Cameroon has been concentrated almost exclusively in the North and Far North Provinces. As a result, the North West Province has received very little assistance from the international community. There is currently no school feeding program in the Bui division.

The potential and need for a Food for Education program based on 1) education, poverty, health and food security indicators from the National Ministry of Health, the Bui Bureau of Health, the Bui Divisional Delegation of Basic Education, and the Bui Divisional Delegation of Secondary Education  2) ability to access a network of local service providers operating down to the village level 3) potential local community, government and private sector contributions to the program for sustainability purposes. Based on this information, Nascent Solutions concluded that the region will benefit best under a USDA school feeding program. In addition, there are no school feeding programs anywhere in Cameroon with the exception of one project operated by the World Food Program in the Far North Province.

Increased the enrollment and attendance of the girl child in target communities will be achieved by providing a hot meals to elementary school children and building the capacity of the community to sustain the  school feeding program.

The program improves the health and nutrition of students through a de-worming all school children, developing  school garden projects as well as a sanitation, health and nutrition curricula for teachers and building school sanitation facilities. The program improves the health and nutrition of children under 5 by monitoring the growth of children under 5 in the target villages, providing take home rations to mothers of children under 5and provide nutritional training for mothers. The project has a local workforce of 28 staff with 27 Cameroonians and one Burkinabe. These include experts in areas such as Agriculture, Health and Nutrition, Monitoring and Evaluation, as well as young professionals with research experience.

Last updated: October 2009