The WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger is born of a partnership between the Government of Brazil and the World Food Programme to enable capacity development of national governments in the areas of school feeding, nutrition, and food security. The Centre of Excellence will have an initial focus on school feeding.

Lessons learned

During Rio+20 Summit in June 2012, WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin visited a public school in Rio de Janeiro, where she met students, faculty and administrators and learned first hand how the Brazilian government and local municipalities are successfully meeting the nutrition and education needs of poor children in ways that also benefit small farmers. Watch video

The Centre of Excellence has been established by WFP and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC). It will have an initial focus on school feeding. The WFP Centre is an innovation for WFP that aims to respond to national government demand to strengthen national capacities and global knowledge on sustainable school feeding, and to support national governments in the design, management and expansion of nationally owned, nutritious, sustainable school feeding programmes, simultaneously promoting food and nutrition security. Read the press release

The Centre of Excellence will be a global resource, providing information, expertise and technical assistance on school feeding and the critical issues surrounding this – food and nutrition programmes, proven safety net programmes, in addition to best practices for connecting family farmers to markets.

The center will leverage the WFP’s and Brazilian expertise while promoting sustainable school feeding models and practices from across the world to help government develop and improve their own national program

The Centre of Excellence opened in March 2011 in Brasilia, capital of Brazil.

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