At the beginning of 2020, one in every two schoolchildren, or 388 million children, received school meals every day from national programmes in at least 161 countries from all income levels.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought an end to this decade of global growth. At the height of the crisis in April 2020, 370 million children were suddenly deprived of what for many was their main meal of the day.
WFP had to adapt its own programmes to manage the crisis with alternative take home rations in the form of food or cash, along with providing direct implementation and technical assistance to countries.
In 2020, WFP provided school meals or snacks to 15 million schoolchildren. To learn more about WFP school feeding programmes in 2020, please see this infographic.
