The Government of Lesotho has made enormous progress in improving the access to education. Recent successes include the introduction of Free Primary Education in 2000 which incorporates a school feeding component.
Government expenditure on education, amounting to 12 percent of the gross domestic product, is considered high by international and regional standards, compared to a world average of 4 percent.
A deepening economic crisis has resulted in a progressive impoverishment of the population. Poor households continue to send their children out to work or withdraw them from school because of their increasing difficulties in covering living expenditures.
The proposed project aims to provide food assistance to 80,000 primary school children mainly in the remote and economically-disadvantaged highlands and mountainous regions to retain them in school, improve their attendance and attract more disadvantaged children to school.
The project will support the Government’s priorities as defined in the Poverty Reduction Strategy and “Education Sector Strategic Plan 2005-2015”, and it contributes to outcome 2 of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework: “to achieve improved and expanded equitable access to quality basic health, education and social welfare services for all by 2012” for the period 2008-2012.
The proposed WFP assistance is in line with Lesotho’s efforts to halve hunger and Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 1 “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger” and MDG 2 “achieve universal primary education” as well as WFP’s strategic objective to support access to education (SO4).
The Government has reiterated its commitment to take over school feeding from WFP after 2010 as part of its long-term education strategy for “free and compulsory primary education” and WFP will help ensure that the required structures and capacities will be in place.
