Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua is appealing to partners to support the Government’s school feeding programme.
Speaking in Mombasa during the flagging off 25,000 metric tons of wheat and 16,000 metric tons of sorghum from Ukraine, Gachagua said meals would keep children from drought and famine affected areas in school as well as secure their future.
“Many children have dropped out of school because of hunger. We are sending a special appeal to our partners to chip in and support the school meal programme,” he said.
The government has been running the school meal programme since 2018.
“The programme continues to be beneficial since 2018. It, however, faces challenges in reach. While the World Food Programme has committed to supporting us in resource mobilisation to reach more children, we appeal to other partners to join us in keeping the children in school. It is one of the ways of securing their future,” he said.
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The wheat, which was delivered from Ukraine by the WFP, was bought with funds from the United Kingdom, Norway, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovenia, and Czech Republic.
The 16,000 metric tons of sorghum was bought by the United States of America through USAID.
The food will be distributed to schools in North Eastern counties and other arid and semi arid regions.
Gachagua said the government has set aside about Ksh. 23.8 billion for water trucking, cash and food transfers, livestock feeds, among others between April and October, 2023.
“While these short term and midterm responses remain key, we are scaling up resilient interventions alongside our partners like World Food Programme, which is working with smallholder farmers in building a strong food security system. We welcome more support on resilience from our partners,” Gachagua said at the Mombasa Port function.
