WPF Country Director presenting The Office Equipment To MoBSE
By Fatou Sillah
The World Food Programme (WFP), in collaboration with the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) and the Ministry of Agriculture, has donated essential office equipment, motorbikes, and logistical support to enhance the implementation of The Gambia’s Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP). The donation, presented at the WFP warehouse in Jeshwang, aims to improve education monitoring and agricultural efficiency in the country.
As part of the initiative, MoBSE received office equipment and motorbikes to strengthen the monitoring, evaluation, and reporting of the school feeding program. Additionally, tricycles were provided to smallholder farmers under the Ministry of Agriculture to facilitate the transportation and delivery of locally sourced food to schools.
The Home-Grown School Feeding Programme is a flagship initiative of the Gambian government and WFP, designed to address food insecurity, enhance educational outcomes, and empower local farmers by linking schools with domestic agricultural production. The program promotes sustainable development, improves the quality of education, and ensures that children receive nutritious meals.
Speaking at the handover ceremony, Louis Moses Mendy, Permanent Secretary at MoBSE, expressed gratitude to WFP for supporting the government’s efforts in providing nutritious meals to students. He emphasized that the donated equipment would significantly enhance the ministry’s capacity to implement and oversee the program effectively.
“We want to profoundly thank you and say that we continue to cooperate with you, we will continue to solicit more of that kind of support in addition to the provisions of food and more importantly quality food, because some of the studies that have been published have revealed that the nutritional value of this food adds immensely to the overall development of the child, and that is an interest for us because you can do get all the goods to get all this, but if the development of that child, is inadequate, the concentration level, the productivity of the children would definitely not also be high that would be low,” He Said.
Fatou Jammeh Touray, Deputy Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, highlighted the broader impact of the initiative, noting that the program not only benefits schoolchildren but also provides economic opportunities for Gambian farmers by creating a stable market for their produce.
“The Home Grown School Feeding program being a program that is here not only for the development of the child as far as education is concerned, but it has also given the farmers of this country, the opportunity to market what they are producing, especially in the Rice and Horticulture domain.
“That makes it very important to an extent that we have a project supporting the Homegrown school feeding program and we definitely Cherish the collaboration that is between the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, WFB, and that particular project under the Ministry of Agricultural, Livestock, and food security,” She Said.
Miranda Sende, WFP Country Director, underscored the importance of the donation in improving service delivery. She noted that the motorbikes and office equipment would enable MoBSE staff to reach remote schools more efficiently, monitor program activities, and provide timely feedback to ensure the initiative’s success.
The donation marks a significant step in the collaborative efforts to enhance food security, education, and agricultural sustainability in The Gambia.