Over the recent years Russia has been working through WFP on diversifying the scope and range of assistance provided to the vulnerable population. Since 2010 we have complemented our traditional activities, such as providing the humanitarian food supplies to the countries in need, with supporting the WFP’s school feeding programmes. For the moment the Government of the Russian Federation has allocated over 120 million USD in support of WFP school feeding programmes in Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Mozambique.

I would like to focus on three special topics.

1. First. As it has already been mentioned by the Executive Director WFP being the largest humanitarian organization is implementing school feeding programmes worldwide with special emphasis on countries stricken by conflicts and hard-to-reach areas. By supporting such crisis States we are not only helping to meet basic nutritional needs of the children, but also bringing them back to classrooms instead of gangs and terrorist groups.

In this regard, we welcome WFP’s efforts to support refugee children both inside Syria and in the neighboring countries. Now we are working closely with colleagues from the WFP on finalizing the remaining arrangements for pledging additional 20 million USD contribution for food, nutrition and livelihood assistance to the people affected by the conflict in Syria. Part of this sum is supposed to go for expanding the school feeding programme operated by WFP inside Syria.

At the same time on a bilateral basis Russia helps rehabilitate damaged infrastructure in Syria. Just few examples. Since July 2018 915 educational centers (including schools) have been repaired alone with 213 medical institutions and 269 bakeries. More than 2100 kilometers of road infrastructure has been rebuilt.

2. Second. There are different ways of providing assistance for the countries in need, including African countries. Under the chairmanship of President Putin we organized the first Russia-Africa Summit at the end of October in Sochi. More than 3 thousand delegates from 54 African states, 45 of them at the level of presidents and heads of governments, participated. One of the practical outcome of this event was to write off the debts of African countries amounting to more than 25 billion USD. Some of these funds are used for so called “debt in exchange for development” debt-swap projects implemented by the UN and its family organizations. In particular, a debt-swap agreement between Russia and Mozambique has unlocked a commitment of 40 million USD, which will be used by WFP to support the Government of Mozambique to provide school meals for 150 000 school children in this country.

This sum – 8 million USD per year – is allocated for five years, starting from 2017, tapping into an already existing national food programme where the WFP is partnering with the government. The WFP expects that during those five years, the Government will gain the capacity to fund and manage the programme even after the debt-swap arrangement is finished.

In addition to providing debt relief for Mozambique, the initiative will free up new resources for development and support expansion of the Mozambique National School Feeding Programme, which seeks to provide school meals across all primary schools in the country.

It’s my pleasure to mention that this debt-swap project is the largest in WFP’s history.

3. Third. Using best practices, institutional and culinary traditions, WFP together with Russian Social and Industrial Foodservice Institute actively works in three CIS countries: Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Armenia was the first former Soviet Union country that thought about the restoration of the school feeding system in 2010. That year WFP launched the “Development of Sustainable School Feeding” project funded by the Government of Russian Federation.

Currently 102 thousand schoolchildren in 969 schools (75% of all Armenian schools) are provided with school meals.

Today WFP operates the school feeding programme in Tajikistan, performs the management role over the program and provides daily school meals to over 410 thousand schoolchildren in 1992 schools (over 50% of the total schools) in 52 food insecure rural areas of the Republic of Tajikistan thanks to the Russian Federation, the main donor of the School Feeding Programme.

School feeding in Kyrgyzstan has become an integral part of national policy, the new school feeding law is being drafted, and all schools provide free meals to primary schoolchildren in the framework of the National School Feeding Programme. 1300 schools – about 60% of all Kyrgyz schools – are providing free hot meals for 400,000 primary schoolchildren in the country. By 2022 it is envisioned that all schools in Kyrgyzstan will have switched to full-fledged hot meals.

In conclusion, Partnering with WFP in the sphere of school feeding means for us applying the best existing practices and experience gained at the national level into international projects aimed at strengthening school nutrition.

 

Ссылка на видео: YouTube