Through national school meals programs, around 418 million children worldwide currently receive a meal at school every day, an increase of 30 million since early 2020, before the pandemic. Yet approximately 180 million school age children live with malnutrition and 1 billion children are at high risk of suffering from food insecurity. The benefits of school meals go beyond nutrition: they improve school enrollment, attendance, attainment, and cognitive development, and reduce dropout rate, especially for girls.
Source: School Meals Coalition