The objective of this event is to offer a platform to strengthen partnerships between key actors, including Ministers of Education, Social Development and Finance or Planning, to share the latest evidence and to exchange programmatic learnings to better contribute to human and social capital development in the region.

The event, co-organized by the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Food Programme, in collaboration with the government of Brazil and with the valuable contribution of important partners of our region, will feature the launch of the “State of School Meals in LAC” a publication developed by the IDB and WFP and well as the launch of a regional study on “Social Protection Pathways to Nutrition in LAC” developed by the WFP with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and IFPRI.

The event will provide spaces for governments to engage in multi-sectoral policy dialogue, further technical capacities, and political and financial commitments to improve the quality and coverage of school meal programs and to better determine how social protection can link to food security and nutrition outcomes.

This initiative will build on the momentum created by the IX School Feeding Forum for Latin America and the Caribbean hosted in Barranquilla, Colombia in April 2022 and the Transforming Education Summit hosted in New York, USA in September 2022. It is also expected to feed into a Global Ministerial Meeting on School Meals to be held in October 2023 in Paris.