Background
Cargill and World Food Programme (WFP) have worked together on health and nutrition since 2001, in countries around the world, and show the positive impact that public private partnerships can have on nutrition. This case study features the experiences, results and lessons learned from the 2017 programme which focused on healthy school meals in Indonesia, where one third of children are chronically undernourished. This programme strengthened the capacity of provincial and local governments and local NGOs to improve and expand school meals and purchases from local farmers, fishermen, shop owners, and communities, further strengthening economic capacity.
Indonesia was selected as the programme location in part because Cargill, which prioritises supporting communities in which it operates, employs 22,000 people in Indonesia. The programme largely focused on schools near Cargill facilities and utilised WFP’s expertise in nutrition education, lending itself well to public private engagement, as NGOs and the private sector offer complementary resources, knowledge, and access to schools and employers.
Partners
The programme was collaboratively led by Cargill and WFP. Programme partners and participants included:
- Ministry of Education and Culture
- Schools in Serang, Pasuruan, Deli Serdang and Belu districts, and 11 other priority districts
- Local farmers, fishermen and shop owners
- Cooking groups (students' parents)
- Yayasan Cempaka (local NGO, Pasuruan district)
- BMP (local NGO, Serang district)
- JPIC (local NGO, Deli Serdang district)
- PPSE (local NGO, Belu district)
- Local regencies
Objectives
- Strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Education to scale-up PROGAS (Indonesia’s national school meals programme) and to use it as a vehicle to promote improved health, hygiene (including hand-washing) and diversified diets
- Extend PROGAS-like school meals in locations near Cargill facilities
- Encourage Cargill employees to adopt a healthier diet in the workplace
Activities
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Developing guidelines and trainings on PROGAS for the government to scale-up the programme
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Training NGO partners on implementing PROGAS and cooking
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Reviewing and making recommendations to improve the nutritional value of meals offered in Cargill facility canteens
Challenges and opportunities
The main challenges were logistical. Two schools (for Objective 2) needed a new kitchen, and another school needed a better water storage system during the dry season. WFP and Cargill collaborated to solve each of these issues, with WFP contributing materials for the new school and Cargill Indonesia funding the purchase and installation of a water tank.
Results
The government scaled-up its national school meals programme from 4 to 11 districts and plans to add 39 more in 2019. About 100,000 students now have access to healthy school meals and four additional schools now benefit from PROGAS-like school meals. One school is now self-sustaining, implementing the programme using funds collected by students’ families. Cargill employees also benefitted from nutrition education sessions, conducted by WFP across three Cargill locations.
The WFP Endline Survey also found:
- Increase in students' nutrition knowledge
- Increase in practice of good hygiene habits
- Increase in consumption balanced meals
- Increase in consumption of fruits and vegetables
- Decrease in purchase of food outside the home
- Increase in consumption of safe water
- Increase in food safety behaviours
- Significant decrease in illness
- Decrease in school absenteeism
- Increase in school concentration
While it was too early to tell the impact on nutritional status, the above are all positive indicators that this programme can positively affect diets and nutrition for school children. For more details of the findings, read the full report: 2017 Endline Survey of Indonesia’s School Meals Programme (PROGAS)
Lessons learned
- The importance of coordinating with local government officials, like Heads of Regencies, to get their early buy-in
- The importance of partnering with local school authorities
- Community mobilisation is essential to getting parents, the local farming community and the cooking groups aligned and to then incorporate the desired inputs into the school meals plan. A participatory and inclusive approach is essential
- Recognising the schools that adopted the school meals programme is important
- An effective measurement and a targeted communication plan helps monitor and report results to key stakeholders
Next steps
Local governments committed to replicating the school meals programme that the partnership supported in 2017. Roadmaps for PROGAS replication in five districts were developed and the transition of the program to these local governments was monitored by the national government and supported by WFP. Through these efforts, the Ministry of Education scaled up PROGAS to a total of 64 districts in 2018.
Currently Cargill and the World Food Program are supporting the government in implementing PROGAS, this time with a focus on establishing coordination systems between the central and regional governments to ensure successful PROGAS implementation across the now-wider coverage area. The partnership also supports the Ministry of Education in shifting funding and implementation of PROGAS to local governments, increasing PROGAS to additional districts, and promoting health and nutrition through the Healthy Indonesia Movement (GerMas) to Cargill employees through a social media campaign.
Cargill and World Food Program are now doing parallel activities for implementation (Medan, Serang & Pasuruan District) and preparation (Amurang and Gresik District) to continue the partnership. The lessons learned from the previous phase are being used to improve the impacts in the new area (districts).
At the Global Child Nutrition Forum in Montreal, Canada, which brought together 59 countries to build national school meal programmes, Indonesia’s Ministry of Education and Culture emphasized the value of the WFP and Cargill partnership, highlighting the success of the PPE model.
Learn more about Cargill & the WFP
Note from the editor: Nutrition Connect aims to share examples of partnerships and collaborations that result in positive nutrition outcomes. We seek examples that objectively demonstrate the potential of public private engagement, in particularly those which are underpinned by sound methodology, including evaluation. However, Nutrition Connect and its funders do not endorse any specific company, government or partnership, and in all cases a single example may not reflect the institution’s overall impact on food and nutrition security. For more information, the Editorial approach sets out our policy for content management, including case studies. Any related queries should be sent to nutritionconnect@gainhealth.org.