The FY20 project had a budget of USD 25 million over five years, aiming to improve literacy in school-age children, increase the use of health and dietary practices and improve the effectiveness of food assistance through local and regional procurement. An overarching objective is to strengthen government capacity at national, district and school levels to manage the National School Feeding Programme (NSFP). The project covered 140 pre- and primary schools in seven districts.
Primary data collection for the endline included school and teachers’ surveys as well as an early grade reading assessment (EGRA) among students, through a representative sample of 31 HGSF schools in the seven implementation districts (the same schools were sampled in the baseline and midterm). The endline also included FGDs and KIIs, with a deep dive in five schools purposively selected as good examples on particular focus areas and five schools outside the project for context and comparison.
Key conclusions:
- The project was relevant to its participants including at school level, among smallholder farmers, and central and local government. While the overall relevance and coherence was very strong, the project did not benefit from complementary community-based programming as expected.
- The project was successful in meeting its intended outcomes, particularly in enrolment, attendance, attentiveness and food safety practices. At endline, most targets had been achieved. Activity delays due to COVID-19 and extreme weather events were corrected with effective adaptive management.
- Most recommendations from the midterm had been implemented, with ongoing efforts to strengthen the M&E system.
- The project demonstrated overall cost-efficiency of programming, though individual components, such as teacher training and activities targeting children under five, did not demonstrate the same efficiency each year.
- WFP’s investments have solidified school feeding in Rwanda’s governance architecture and supported the transition of schools into the NSFP. Local communities have demonstrated increasing capacity to manage and maintain school feeding at the local level. The main sustainability risk is funding constraints.
The evaluation identified several lessons for similar projects:
- Lesson 1: Community engagement is essential and cannot be optional.
- Lesson 2: Infrastructure and resourcing must align with training to elicit behavior change.
- Lesson 3: A whole-of-government approach can accelerate impact when effectively mobilized.
- Lesson 4: A phased transition yields better results and smoother handover.
- Lesson 5: School feeding is a strategic anchor for broader capacity strengthening.
Recommendations reflected the overall highly positive findings, and spelled out strategic opportunities to further build project performance: To institutionalize best practices and lessons learned; define and track efficiency indicators; and transition towards implementation and process optimization.
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