School Milk Programme Learning paper: “A parent-led approach with dairy products for pre-primary and primary school children”

SNV, Yoba for Life and Wageningen University and Research have been collaborating over the years around two dairy sector development projects, The Inclusive Dairy Enterprise (TIDE) in Uganda and Building Rural Income through Inclusive Dairy Business Growth in Ethiopia (BRIDGE). Both projects are working at supply and demand levels and have been promoting a parent-led school milk programme. In this paper, we start with the recognition that national school feeding programmes, while beneficial at educational, nutritional and socio-economic levels, still struggle in low-income countries to reach a majority of children and communities. We explain the reasons that led us to pilot and scale a parent-led approach with dairy products for pre-primary and primary schoolchildren. The case studies of school milk in our Ugandan and Ethiopian programmes are discussed, our operational approach summarized and our current results presented. In our conclusion, we reflect on potential longer term prospects, such as the creation of a milk-drinking culture and sector development, the role of milk in school as a first step towards a healthy diet and the valorisation of parental and community contribution in school feeding in complement to the strategic roles of donors and governments in scaling school feeding in low-income countries.