Mission
To support governments to estimate the potential multisectoral returns on investment of their national school meals programme.
Why?
Scaling up school meals programmes is a complex mission, and governments need clear, data-driven evidence to justify investments and guide programme design. The Analytics & Metrics CoP helps governments to understand the additive returns of school meals across multiple sectors, including education, health and nutrition, local agricultural economy, and social protection, within their own unique national and subnational contexts.
How?
- Value-for-money studies: Working closely with governments and local researchers, we co-develop an economic and priority setting methodology and tool to estimate the return on investment of national school meals programmes across four key sectors: education, health and nutrition, social protection, and local agricultural economy. These studies are underway in around 15 countries—including eleven in sub-Saharan Africa.
- LAYS analysis: The CoP applies the Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS) metric to better understand school meals as an investment in educational outcomes—and ultimately in a country’s human capital.
Co-Chairs
Publications
National School Meals Value-for-Money Studies
Other research
- Angrist N et al. The impact of school meals on education outcomes: A meta-analysis, mimeo. (forthcoming)
- Angrist N et al. How to improve education outcomes most efficiently? A review of the evidence using a unified metric (2024) Journal of Development Economics
- Verguet S et al. School-based malaria chemoprevention as a cost-effective approach to improve cognitive and educational outcomes: a meta-analysis arXiv preprint (2023)
- Verguet S et al. Investing in school systems: conceptualising returns on investment across the health, education and social protection sectors (2023) BMJ
- Cohen J et al. Universal free school meals: the future of school meals programmes? (2023) The Lancet
- Bundy DAP et al. The Investment Case for School Health & Nutrition: Memo #4 (2022)
- Verguet S et al. The broader economic value of school feeding programs in low- and middle-income countries: estimating the multi-sectoral returns to public health, human capital, social protection and the local economy (2020) Frontiers in Public Health
- Verguet S et al. The Broader Economic Value of School Feeding Programs in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Estimating the Multi-Sectoral Returns to Public Health, Human Capital, Social Protection, and the Local Economy (2020) Frontiers in Public Health
Past events
- The Multisectoral Impacts of School Meals: Findings across VFM studies, Research Consortium Annual Showcase 2025
- The Multisectoral Impacts of School Meals: Impacts on Education, Research Consortium Annual Showcase 2025
- School Meals Impact: Gathering Evidence from Ethiopia and India, , 24 April 2024
- Presenting the Evidence Landscape, Research Consortium Annual Showcase 2024
- Expanding universal school feeding programs in sub-Saharan Africa: addressing the multisectoral challenges and opportunities to delivering meals in schools, Gaborone, Botswana, November 2024
- What is the case for investing in school meals? Research Consortium Annual Showcase 2023
- Measuring Success: What makes an effective school feeding programme? 30 May 2022