How AfriFOODlinks is turning two schools in Ouagadougou into examples of healthy transformation of their school food environment

Food contamination remains a great threat to the health and economy. In Burkina Faso, the EU-funded AfriFOODlinks programme, implemented by Rikolto in collaboration with the city authorities, is testing a model to improve the integrated management of school canteens in Ouagadougou. The initiative, carried out using a participatory approach, is already contributing to healthier and safer school environments in two pilot schools: Nongmikma A and B.

Foodborne illnesses continue to cause preventable tragedies. "About 70% of diarrhoea cases are linked to the consumption of contaminated food", experts estimate. Children, whose immune systems are still developing are particularly at risk. ¹

However, many schools continue to lack adequate sanitation infrastructure to safeguard children’s health. Globally, "nearly one (01) school out of four (04) does not have drinking water supply, and one school out of five have not access to sanitation facilities^.2" In Burkina Faso, less than half of schools have access to safe drinking water, and only more than a third have sanitation facilities, even though many microbial infections are preventable through handwashing with soap³.

Many of these challenges can be significantly reduced when schools are provided with functional infrastructure that allows students access to safe drinking water, improved sanitation, and regular handwashing with soap. Combined with health education, both in personnel and in food preparation⁴.    

School canteens: a National Priority  

Promoting school and local canteens with a nutritional focus, alongside school gardens and orchards, is one of the key actions of Burkina Faso’s National Multisectoral Policy. Under strategy objective 1.1., the policy outlines a commitment to scale up school-based nutrition initiatives, including to increase the proportion of primary schools with nutritional gardens from 10% in 2014 to at least 30% by 2029 (PNMN, p. 42). This effort aligns with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the World Health Assembly’s 2025 Global Nutrition Targets⁵.  However, despite a strong national and international policy backing, the conditions under many students receive meals remain precarious. ⁶

"Last year, we didn't wash our hands with soap before eating, and we brought our food in uncovered plates. “Now, after seeing the drawings, we bring covered containers and wash our hands with soap before eating,” says Djamilatou, a student at Nongmikma.

AfriFOODlinks: Improving school canteens collectively

Until early 2024, canteen infrastructure was almost non-existent in Nongmikma A and B Schools.  Food was delivered to the schools, but meals were cooked outdoors, exposed to wind and dust.

"We cooked in the open air and were exposed to the dust, ... Our ardent wish was to have at least a kitchen where we could prepare the food and that the children be well served", teachers explained.

As part of the AfriFOODlinks project, a school feeding working group assessed four schools. Nongmikma B was initially selected as a pilot school. However, because Nongmikma A and B, share the same compound and management committee, the teachers advocated for both schools to be included. The project team agreed, ensuring the changes would benefit all students on the site.

With support from Rikolto and the municipality, the two schools became a testing ground for the integrated model of school canteen management designed to contribute to improving the entire school food environment. “There was a lot of work to understand each school’s realities. Based on our concrete situation, Nongmikma was selected, it was not imposed,” explains Joanny KABORE, Director of Nongmikma B.  

But what does this ‘integrated model of school canteen management’ mean in practice?

It is an approach where teachers, parents, students, canteen staff, school committees, local authorities, and partners such as Rikolto all work together to improve every part of the school food environment. Instead of focusing only on cooking, or only on infrastructure, the model connects all the elements that influence school meals, from hygiene and nutrition education, to clean kitchens, food storage, school gardens, handwashing, and community involvement. The aim is to make school meals healthier, safer, and better organised, by ensuring that the whole school community shares responsibility.

Building Skills and Infrastructure

The pilot project has enabled students, teachers, management committees, and school administrators to strengthen their capacity to meet the need for healthy, standard-compliant school meals. "The support also, really came from the teachers... They were very receptive" explains Dene GNESSOUKOUM, Rikolto’s Food Governance Project Manager in Ouagadougou. In this regard, key activities included:

• Training 50 school feeding stakeholders from five schools on good cooking, hygiene, and food storage practices;
• Awareness- raising on healthy eating for students and staff
• Establishing school gardens in Nongmikma A and B;
• Constructing two kitchens and a dining hall;
• Organisation of a workshop for the co-production of murals with students, teachers, canteen staff, and the management committee;
• Mobilising parents to contribute to the sustainability of the local canteen
• Introducing an integrated canteen management model

During trainings, participants explored how different cooking methods affect the nutritional quality of meals, as well as the storage and preservation of fresh and dry food products. And it helped to identify essential equipment needed to uphold the new standards.

The creation of the school garden demonstrated the strong commitment of the school stakeholders and parents, who volunteered their time to prepare the soil and plant crops.

"We helped to dig, plant, and clean..." says Etienne Ouedraogo, parent and former member of the schools committee. " It’s for the students’ wellbeing, for healthy eating, that motivated us," adds Tasséré Ouedraogo, another parent.

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Art as a Driver of Change

To support long-term behavioural change, the project team incorporated social art techniques into the school environment. Six months after the  construction began, a new feature caught the visitor's eye upon entering the courtyard of the schools. The murals look as though have always belonged there, as visual reminders that teaching children to wash their hands should be in all schools.

By the start of the 2025 school year in October, the brand-new kitchen and a dining area will serve 1,021 students enrolled at Nongmikma A and B in the 2024–2025 school year, providing safer and more dignified spaces for school meals.

The use of murals in schools, markets, and street food stalls is allowing the AfriFOODlinks project to encourage the broader society in Ouagadougou to adopt good practices for healthy, balanced, and sustainable eating.

In the pilot, this approach is to be replicated more widely in markets, schools, and street food areas across the city. After murals are completed, facilitated discussions with priority groups, such as market vendors and consumers, are intented to help to test and strengthen the community’s understanding of the messages.

Towards Replication and Sustainability

The Nongmikma experience is part of a broader AfriFOODlinks component: Implementation and Evaluation of Real-World Interventions to Improve Food Environments. Each activity is designed through a participatory dialogue, preceded by exchanges and discussions to take into account everyone’s expectations and needs, share Harouna, Rikolto's project coordinator.

The initiative also contributes to Strategic Objective 4.2 of Burkina’s Faso National Food Safety Emergency Response Plan, a step that could promote the application of good food safety practices ⁷".

The experimentation of the model for promoting the integrated school canteen management in the city of Ouagadougou is being trialled at a time when stakeholders in school feeding are campaigning for a school food and nutrition law to be adopted.

'Among the things we are doing are: support and monitoring to consolidate achievements, strengthen the capacity of school stakeholders to adopt local canteens, promote the adoption of good school food practices in other schools, disseminate success stories, and strengthen the capacity of stakeholders to replicate school gardens'. - Harouna MAÏGA, Project Manager for AfriFOODlinks at Rikolto.

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References

¹ https://scalingupnutrition.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/POLITIQUE%20NATIONALE%20MULTISECTORIELLE%20DE%20NUTRITION%20%20%282%29.pdf

²  https://www.unesco.org/fr/health-education/nutrition

³  https://planete-eed.org/project/burkina-lhygiene-dans-les-ecoles/#:~:text=Au%20Burkina%20Faso%2C%20seules%2048,va%20pas%20%C3%A0%20l'%C3%A9cole.

⁴  https://www.who.int/fr/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/diarrhoeal-disease

⁵ https://scalingupnutrition.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/POLITIQUE%20NATIONALE%20MULTISECTORIELLE%20DE%20NUTRITION%20%20%282%29.pdf

⁶ https://oi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/file_attachments/rr-food-secuity-burkina-faso-school-canteens-070415-fr.pdf

⁷ https://scalingupnutrition.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/POLITIQUE%20NATIONALE%20MULTISECTORIELLE%20DE%20NUTRITION%20%20%282%29.pdf