A balanced diet is essential for every child’s growth and learning. Yet, in Burkina Faso and Senegal, public school canteens often face challenges: limited menus, a reliance on snacks and sweets sold near schools, and weak links between family farmers and school meal programmes.
The Good Food at School (GF@S) project is working to change this in Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso), and Dakar and Thiès (Senegal). Together with students, parents, teachers, food vendors, canteen staff, producer organisations, and local authorities, GF@S is building healthier, safer, and more sustainable school food environments.
By promoting local procurement, nutrition education, and participatory school governance, the project helps ensure that every child has access to safe, nutritious, and sustainable meals, while local farmers and vendors benefit from fairer, more reliable markets.
School canteens have been part of West African education systems for more than 60 years, introduced to boost enrolment and reduce hunger. Yet, their operation faces persistent obstacles:
At the same time, both Burkina Faso and Senegal, alongside 90 other countries, have committed to ensuring at least one meal a day for every school-aged child, a goal championed by five UN agencies. Achieving this vision requires practical, local solutions that improve food environments within and around schools.
In West Africa, Good Food at School (GF@S) interventions focus on creating inclusive, resilient school food systems by improving food safety, strengthening community participation and building stronger linkages between schools and local producers.
GF@S aims to transform school food environments across West Africa by 2040, so that:
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To achieve this, GF@S applies a five-step participatory model developed with school communities:
In Burkina Faso, interventions focus on food safety and infrastructure, nutritional education, through school food charters, gardens, vendor training, murals and multi-stakeholder platforms. These initiatives strengthen coordination between municipalities and community actors for more effective school feeding governance.
In Senegal, GF@S combines school gardens with community-run snack kiosks. These kiosks, converted from shipping containers, offer healthy, affordable food, while serving as training and entrepreneurship hubs for women vendors. The initiative connects schools with local farmers and supports municipal authorities in developing food safety guidelines, paving the way for replication in other cities.
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Pilot schools in Burkina Faso and Senegal are functioning as “food laboratories”, where the Good Food at School (GF@S) model is being tested and adapted with students, parents, teachers, canteen workers, women street vendors, producer organisations and municipal actors.
GF@S is connecting producer organisations with school canteens to increase the supply of fresh, diverse, and local foods, strengthening both nutrition and local economic participation.
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By 2026, the Good Food @ School (GF@S) Project will have strengthened the foundations for healthier, more inclusive, and better-governed school food environments in Burkina Faso and Senegal:
School communities:
Local implementing partner: Beoneere Agroécologie Association, a key player in the implementation of agroecological principles in school food environments.
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