Before COVID-19 hit, in January 2020, 388 million children worldwide were being fed every day at school. Soon after lockdowns began, that number plummeted to 18 million, but just two years later, in 2022, it had recovered, and more — school feeding had reached 420 million children.
Labelled the world’s largest social security net by the United Nations World Food Programme, school meals have become essential tools for governments rich and poor globally. Not only does school feeding allow once-hungry students to focus on learning, in many cases the schemes also help to improve nutrition and eating habits, ensure regular attendance, and through buying ingredients locally or in-country, help to boost local and national economies.
Today’s guest, Donald Bundy, is Director of the Global Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition. He told me that he is not surprised at the swift recovery of school meals after COVID-19 — he says it was politically expedient for many governments to bring them back quickly. What he didn’t predict was that the recovery would surpass pre-pandemic numbers, even as governments north and south struggled to overcome barriers such as broken supply chains, growing inequality, and persistent inflation.
Bundy points out that school feeding is not an initiative of aid agencies or donor governments. In fact, 98% of the programmes are financed by national governments as investments in their people and future workforce.
We also discuss how countries in the global south, such as Brazil, India and Rwanda, are breaking ground for innovative school feeding while outlier northern countries, such as Canada and Norway, are starting to discuss whether it’s time to adopt national programmes. Bundy also explains how fallout from the pandemic pushed lawmakers in the United States to adopt school meals schemes which led to universal initiatives that feed all students in some of the country’s largest cities, like Houston, New York and Washington, DC.
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Before COVID-19 hit, in January 2020, 388 million children worldwide were being fed every day at school. Soon after lockdowns began, that number plummeted to 18 million, but just two years later, in 2022, it had recovered, and more — school feeding had reached 420 million children.
Labelled the world’s largest social security net by the United Nations World Food Programme, school meals have become essential tools for governments rich and poor globally. Not only does school feeding allow once-hungry students to focus on learning, in many cases the schemes also help to improve nutrition and eating habits, ensure regular attendance, and through buying ingredients locally or in-country, help to boost local and national economies.
Today’s guest, Donald Bundy, is Director of the Global Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition. He told me that he is not surprised at the swift recovery of school meals after COVID-19 — he says it was politically expedient for many governments to bring them back quickly. What he didn’t predict was that the recovery would surpass pre-pandemic numbers, even as governments north and south struggled to overcome barriers such as broken supply chains, growing inequality, and persistent inflation.
Bundy points out that school feeding is not an initiative of aid agencies or donor governments. In fact, 98% of the programmes are financed by national governments as investments in their people and future workforce.
We also discuss how countries in the global south, such as Brazil, India and Rwanda, are breaking ground for innovative school feeding while outlier northern countries, such as Canada and Norway, are starting to discuss whether it’s time to adopt national programmes. Bundy also explains how fallout from the pandemic pushed lawmakers in the United States to adopt school meals schemes which led to universal initiatives that feed all students in some of the country’s largest cities, like Houston, New York and Washington, DC.
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Hi everyone. Thank you for listening to Strive, a podcast of IPS News that speaks with people working to create a more just and sustainable world. My name is Marty Logan. Before COVID-19 hit,in January 2020, 388 million children worldwide were being fed every day at school. Soon after lockdowns began, that number plummeted to 18 million, but just two years later, in 2022, it had recovered and more: school feeding had reached 420 million children. Labeled the world's largest social security net by the United Nations World Food Program, school meals have become essential tools for governments rich and poor globally. Not only does school feeding allow once hungry students to focus on learning, in many cases the schemes also help to improve nutrition and eating habits, ensure regular attendance, and, through buying ingredients locally or in country, help to boost local and national economies. Today's guest, Donald Bundy, is Director of the Global Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition. He told me that he is not surprised at the swift recovery of school meals after COVID-19. What he didn't predict was that the recovery would surpass pre-pandemic numbers, even as governments north and south struggled to overcome barriers such as broken supply chains, growing inequality and persistent inflation. Bundy points out that school feeding is not an initiative of aid agencies or donor governments. In fact, 98 percent of the programmes are financed by national governments as investments in their people and future workforce. We also discuss how countries in the global south, such as Brazil, India, and Rwanda, are breaking ground for innovative school feeding, while outlier northern countries, like Canada and Norway, are starting to discuss whether it's time to adopt national programmes. Bundy also explains how fallout from the pandemic pushed lawmakers in the United States to adopt school meal schemes, which led to universal initiatives that feed all students in some of the country's largest cities like Houston, New York, and Washington, DC. Please listen now to my chat with Donald Bundy. Donald Bundy, welcome to Strive podcast.
Donald Bundy:Well, thank you for inviting me to join, Marty.
Marty Logan:I want to ask you about the recovery of school meals programmes following the COVID-19 pandemic. But first, I think many people still think of school meals as something directed at poor children. But I know that they've become much more than that in a wide range of countries in recent years. Can you give a brief overview of what exactly school feeding is today?
Donald Bundy:Sure, and of course you're quite right, people may have particular memories of school meals, which may not give them the best sense of what school meals can be and what they can deliver. A lot of people think that school meals are only provided by external agencies or aid agencies or charitable institutions. But in fact, more than 90 percent of school meals, in fact, more than 98 percent of school meals, are provided as national programmes, by governments. They're, they're part of the fabric of school systems worldwide. More than a half of the world's primary schoolchildren receive meals in school. So it's a it's a very commonly delivered intervention globally. It's, of course, as with all of these things, least in the poorest countries, but overall, it is a very common, very commonly delivered, product and the purpose is, is not about poverty alleviation, or not just about poverty alleviation. Let's take the example of thinking about a place like Japan where they have universal school meals precisely because the children need to be fed at school, they're there all day, and it's a great opportunity to actually have a cultural experience. So they choose foods that are very culturally appropriate and they, they talk about the etiquette of, of enjoying your lunch. So there's, there's a real cultural piece there. The French have the same sort of approach to the role for their meals. But also the, the economists think they're a very good idea. Because these children are not merely having their hunger assuaged. They're ensuring their well-being during the time when they're being taught. These are children at school. They're there for the, for the full day, and if that's happening, then you need to look after them. Children just like us, who are only going to be able to perform, are only going to learn, if their tummies are full. And why is that important? Because educated children grow up to be educated adults and, and those adults that, you know, what the economists would call this is, human capital. These are the generation, the next generation that will create the wealth of, of, of the country. So, you can see that there's these very broad, these very broad, issues. And I'm going to add one, perhaps more recently really recognized, is that this is also the time, the when children establish their eating preferences, their dietary preferences, when they learn what to eat and that learning we take forward for the rest of our lives. If we just reflect on our own, our own lives and our own food preferences, we can see how influenced they were by, by what happened earlier on. And that matters in two important ways nowadays. Firstly, because of nutrition, we now, now really recognize that choosing the right foods, having the right nutritional balance, is really important for the whole of our lives, for our well-being, for our thinking, for our learning. But also now, it also helps us choose foods which come from sustainable, resilient, resources. The food systems of the world--we hear this all the time, read about this all the time in the media--are, are under threat: climate change, they're having big environmental impacts. We read a lot about these monocultures of, of wheat and maize and what that does to the soil in countries. So helping the next generation of, of young people grow up to be adults that choose the right nutritional foods and also choose foods that are planet friendly, sustainable, climate friendly, is also something that school meals can do. I don't want to, belabour the point, you can see that school meals are certainly, have a very broad spectrum of benefits.
Marty Logan:Right. Okay. Thank you very much. So, health benefits, economic benefits, and, labor benefits as well, if you want to look at it like that. Now, all of this, was interrupted, during the COVID-19 pandemic, like so many parts of our lives. And I know that more than 370 million schoolchildren were deprived of school meals during the pandemic. But also I've read on the website of the School Meals Coalition that now that loss has been made up. So those children, all those children, more or less, who were no longer able to get school meals during the pandemic, they've recovered and are now being fed again. So two questions about that: how do we know that has actually happened? How do we know those numbers have jumped back up to pre pandemic levels? And then secondly, and I guess this is a bit more difficult question, there are so many governments worldwide now struggling to pay the various demands on their budgets. So, of course, one of the big demands is as a result of the conflict that's happening around the world, and I think still some interruptions post Covid to supply chains. Cost of living is increasing in many, many places around the world. And so governments everywhere seem to be saying, you know,'no', to so many demands.'We can't afford that'. And yet here they are, by and large, still investing or at least maintaining their investments in school meals. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about why you think that is so paramount to so many national governments.
Donald Bundy:Sure. The actual numbers are really interesting and important to understand here. So as you say, the World Food Programme estimates that 370 million children during the height of the Covid pandemic, meaning the height of school closures due to the Covid pandemic-- perhaps I just should make that very clear: countries worldwide decided that one of the things that would help prevent transmission of Covid was to close schools. Of course, parents also didn't want to send their children to schools if there was a risk, and teachers didn't want to go work in schools if there was a risk. So there were both government factors and society factors. But nevertheless, schools closed in a way that we've never known in the history of humankind. This was the first time this has happened. So, massive, strange situation suddenly we were without schools. And WFP estimates that at the height of that, every day, 370 million children did not get the meals that they had previously expected. So huge. So the question is, how many were being fed before this? And the answer is that in January 2020, data that were released by the World Food Programme, data that came from surveys of countries, surveys conducted by a number of, of different sources: the Global Child Nutrition Forum, the, World Bank, the World Food Programme itself, all of their data was compiled and it indicated that 388 million children had been fed in January 2020. 388 million Within a few months, by April, 370 million were no longer being fed. So you can see it fell down to, you know, 10 or 20 million children actually still, still getting food by some means in, in schools. And it was really the realization of that impact, the scale of that impact, that led to the creation of the School Meals Coalition that you mentioned. And the school meals Coalition is, is a Coalition of governments. So this isn't a sort of UN- driven process or, or, some kind of external organization. This is the countries themselves saying,'Oh dear, when we shut the schools a lot of things stopped happening and one of them was that we were no longer feeding our children'. And the realization of that created this Coalition to try and push back. And the Coalition adopted a number of goals, and their primary goal, their first goal, when they were founded-- so they were founded in 2021, you know, 12 months after the 388 million had dropped to 10 million-- one of their primary goals was to restore meals to the same level of coverage as in 2020. That, that's what, quite a logical goal, and, and their aim was to do that by 2025, I think was the, was, was their target. But in fact, what happened was, when WFP analyzed the data for 2022, and again this is data collected from all these various survey instruments, 2022 showed that 418 million children were being covered. Now, let's be clear then. So it was 388 in 2020, back it fell to 10 or 20 million, and then it's back up to 420 million in 2022. And that's actually 30 million more than prior to Covid. You know, when we talk about hundreds of millions, it's easy to think 30 million isn't a big number, but it's a huge number. 30 million children, if you try and visualize that, that's an enormous number of children extra that were reached. And this was quite dramatic and a reflection of the fact that the School Meals Coalition countries had taken their goal very seriously indeed. And had moved forward to not only reinstate the programmes they already had, but in some cases, to really ramp up their programmes. The example I'll just share with you is Rwanda. Rwanda covered 600, 000 children every day with their school meals programme in 2020. By 2022, post Covid, they were feeding, 3. 8 million children. So, if you like, 0. 6 million and now 3. 8 million. They'd made a conscious decision to try and feed all of their children because of the bad experience they'd had during the Covid school closures. Let me be clear, it's the school closures that were the problem. The countries realized, for the first time in many cases, that not having schools open meant you couldn't reach schoolchildren. There was no other convenient platform that allowed you to deliver food to these children. We know that because, of course, many countries tried to reach them. They tried to reach them at home, or they tried to suggest they, you know, a sort of pseudo school, you know, come together to a particular place and pick up food. But all of those were much more complicated and expensive options than doing it at school. I hope that answers the first part of the question that you were asking, Marty.
Marty Logan:Yes, it does. And I, I just can't help but say I find that extraordinary, that the number increased that way. You and others you work with in school meals, you must be extremely happy to see something like that happen because you could easily forecast that you lose all of those children or the ability to feed those children in school, it's going to take a long time-- and maybe that's why initially it was a 2025 deadline that was set or a target that was set--and for it to come up and surpass that number faster, I'm, I'm very surprised. Were you surprised at the time?
Donald Bundy:We were surprised from the point of view that it got done, because just as you say, it's a big logistic challenge. Although, let's remember, it's putting back what was already there, you know, that's the minimum, putting back what's already there. What really surprised us was it was putting back what was already there, but actually doing more in many cases. That's what was the surprise. Because, and I think this is really an important issue, the politics of giving people something, giving people the expectation that their children are going to be looked after at school and fed at school, and then taking that away, that's a politically very, very bad thing to do. So I think that the political pressures in countries were very strong for governments to be seen to act. If we recognize, of course, that these schoolchildren are the children of the voters in the country; these are the children of the electorate. Suddenly, the people in the country were having to look after their children every day instead of sending them to school. So it was a real problem particularly for working parents. And then secondly, the children were no longer getting the free meals maybe they weren't free-- but that were no longer getting their meals provided. So that was an extra, an additional burden. And I think parents were quite vocal about this. This was, for many parents, the biggest manifestation of the Covid pandemic, but that's the worst part of the lockdown, if you, if you like. And so I think governments wanted to do something that they could reinstate quickly that would show that they cared and that they were looking after, their population, looking after their children. And we certainly hear that kind of statement from heads of state in low income settings and in high income settings. That was a universal reaction by the politicians worldwide.
Marty Logan:Great. So the second part of the question, just very briefly again, is Why is it, you think, that governments have made school meals, school feeding, such a priority when there are so many competing priorities?
Donald Bundy:So I think those things are tied to what I've just said. Again, the economists use this term counterfactual, meaning you only really discover what you need when you lose it. And here we had the counterfactual of not having schools. And I think governments discovered that if you don't have schools, you can't reach the children. It's not only about education and of course, please don't for a moment forget that closing schools is very damaging from an education point of view-- but it also turned out to be damaging socially and sociologically, and also in mental health terms. So there were real issues for children, and they are issues that we are, we tried to cover this a little earlier, that can be very much supported by the provision of meals in schools. And so governments prior to the whole Covid situation had made conscious decisions that supporting all of their children was a very wise investment in the future of their country. I mean, let's be clear: those children become the generators of wealth for any nation. Worldwide, there's an agreement that we provide education, that we provide free, compulsory, universal education. There's, there's no country that doesn't have that as a goal. And actually none of us think that's very strange, right? We expect education to be free and compulsory. You know, if you're that age, you're supposed to be in school. And the school is supposed to be provided by the government. You know, there may be situations where people pay more to get some private version of that, but the idea that that's provided we just think that's normal And I think what governments have come to realize is that providing that education also implies you need to look after the welfare, the well-being, of those children If you're going to invest, if you're going to spend trillions of dollars on providing teachers and textbooks and schools, you better make sure those learners that go to the schools are able to learn. And it's a, serious, seriously faulty trade off, not to invest in those children in other ways. And I think most countries have, completely, come to that conclusion. Very interestingly, if we look at the, what's the largest, programme in the world, the largest school meals programme in the world, that's in India. And in India, where they're, you know, at, at the least they're covering 90 million children every day with programmes, 90-- that's a universal programme. It's universal in order to support all of the children, to give those children all a level playing field as they enter school. When Brazil thought about its national school meals programme, it went for the same thing. So it's again, Brazil, 40 million children every day are provided for, and I'm deliberately choosing two countries that we wouldn't necessarily think of, as being the most wealthy, but nevertheless, they prioritized this. I can also, of course, talk about the economic returns to making that decision. I again just emphasize that at least half of the world's primary schoolchildren are provided with meals in schools every day, and 98 percent of those costs are covered by the governments. So the reality is that governments have made that decision. They see this as a key and important investment.
Marty Logan:Right. And I certainly see that here in Nepal, where over the past decade the government's share of investment in school meals has skyrocketed and correspondingly the share of the World Food Programme has declined and now they're almost at a point where they're just providing technical assistance to the government programme. But speaking of countries like Nepal, India, and Brazil, Rwanda, where I see these huge investments in school meals, I contrast those countries with my own home country, Canada, which still does not have a national programme. I know there are people working very hard to get a national programme in place, and the government has made a sort of commitment to do that. There are provincial programmes and territorial programmes, but not one single programme. So I see a place like Canada and other so called, high income countries, which seem to be having more problems than Nepal or India or Rwanda in maintaining their programmes, in feeding kids at school, generally speaking. Number one, is that a correct impression? And number two, why do you think that would be the case?
Donald Bundy:So I think we're seeing, an evolving picture. So if we think about, high income countries like Canada. If we think about the children there, all those children are getting fed, right? It's not that the children are not being fed. It's who's going to feed them is the question. And, you know, let me draw another parallel, would be Sweden and Norway. Sweden, a universal school meals programme for the last 75 years, as has Finland, by the way, and their neighbour Norway doesn't have a school feeding programme, despite of course being a very wealthy country, and also a very liberal country. So why Canada? Why Norway, against the grain, as it were, of the other settings? And the answer is largely about what the expectations are of the nation, of the role of its parents. So the expectation has historically been that parents look after schoolchildren and that parents provide the children with food. They either go home at lunchtime or they take food to school at lunchtime, and that's a parental responsibility. And that politicians, we will hear them say that that's our country, that's our culture, parents look after children. That's not the role of the state'. Now what's changing, and it is literally changing in Norway and Canada, there's a debate, a discussion going on, is the realization that making sure that all of the children have the same opportunity in life should start at school. If we want our next generation, to have all the opportunities to move up, to gain an education, to increase their earnings as adults, then we need them to be able to take advantage of the teaching opportunity, the learning opportunity at school. We, therefore, need to recognize that the children from the households with the least financial capacity will be the ones most likely not to be getting a meal to take to school or a meal at home. And, you know, we can all reflect on examples we can think of where that's, where that's the case, where perhaps less constructed households are least able to look after their children in that, in that way; not all, of course, but, but, but that's true for some. And the result of that is that that child is in double jeopardy. Not only is the child deprived in a number of other ways, but it's also deprived in its access to food when at school. And so here's something where the state can intervene and level the playing field so that all children have the same opportunity. And this is a lot of the modern thinking that's gone into this. And let me give you an example that may surprise you, which is the United States. So in America during the Covid pandemic, there was legislative decision that all children who went to school would be fed at school. Obviously this was after the schools had reopened. So any child that went to school would be fed at school. This was part of the reopening. It encouraged children to go to school and, and this was, this was enacted. in all states; it was a a federal programme. When the pandemic had declined, the federal programme was stopped, but at least eight states, including really big ones like, California, decided they would continue with this; that they decided that their experience during the feeding, the universal feeding--rather than having targeted feeding or some children getting free food, some children having to pay--that just doing it for everyone was simpler, many cases it was very much more cost efficient. In the school. It removed stigma, and it ensured that all the children had also meals that were sustainable meals. And, you know, this part I talked about earlier, of children developing food preferences that they will take with them for life, is actually quite a good investment In our children: to present them with food that will be good for them and good for the planet. And so getting them into that onto that track. So for those reasons, eight states to my knowledge, I haven't looked at the figures very recently, switched to doing universal school meals. But the US also had introduced a, special, regulation, which said that if if a school had more than 40% of its children eligible for free school meals, then all of the children in the school should be fed. That this would be a cost saving, a cost efficiency measure, it would also provide a level playing field. It also, if you like, is a slightly socially benefiting measure because schools that already have 40 percent, children that are eligible for free school meals are likely to be in relatively low income areas. So, this provision that was brought in, has been adopted as as a federal provision and the remarkable thing that's happened as a result of that is, pretty well every school in any substantial US city has universal school meals. In other words, because most of the city schools, the city public schools, in most of those there was more than 40 percent children eligible for free school meals, now in those schools all of the children receive free school meals. Well, it turns out that most of the public schools in big American cities qualify for that. And so, you know, surprisingly, cities like Dallas and Houston are universal school meal cities. You know, Washington, D. C., New York, this has become a, a statewide phenomenon, where there is universal feeding of all the children. And so, you know, I mention that because of course that's a neighbour to Canada, right? So, Canada has begun to think through what it wants to do about this. But it's going through a process. The process involves a decision about, is this the parents role? Is this the state role? What's the balance between those things? And I think what we're already seeing is that some provinces are moving towards providing free school meals. Some are moving more quickly than others. And also then, I'm taking over to the European example, Norway is exploring the possibility of moving now to, to a school meals programme, as is Denmark, as is Germany. So we're seeing this as a, a changing trend.
Marty Logan:That's very interesting. And, what you say about it being a changing trend resonates. I think globally people are starting to think differently about the challenges to families, to diets, to healthy living, that sort of thing. That said, I was surprised at both the US examples and the Canada example. I was quite disappointed the first time I realized that Canada was a laggard in terms of G20, G8 countries, but also surprised to see more recently what's been happening in the US: how many different programmes as you very well described, are actually, starting up south of the border. So all very interesting, quite complex, but very interesting. One final question I have as you also very clearly and plainly described, there are many benefits to school meal programmes, obviously health, education. We didn't talk too much about, the economic benefits to local economies. Now, there's something called homegrown school feeding, and I've seen it here in Nepal-- slow to take off, but it is happening here-- where schools try to buy the foodstuffs, the produce from local producers. So I'm wondering when you're looking at school meal programmes globally, are you trying to put more emphasis on one or more of these programmes? So, for example, we have so many kids now who are receiving school meals; the number is growing steadily. So, in a sense, overall, that programme has been a success. But as I mentioned, in terms of engaging and connecting with the local economies, I think that's more slow to pick up. Is there a thinking maybe among the School Meal Coalition countries that we need to put more emphasis on that homegrown school feeding or perhaps that we need to spend more time educating the children when they're in school about what healthy eating means. Can you point to one or more that is, a priority at the moment?
Donald Bundy:Of course, I'm going to say all of the above, aren't I? I mean, that's, but I, I will try and just dissect it a little bit if that's helpful.
Marty Logan:Please, yes.
Donald Bundy:So the term homegrown school feeding is, is, really an umbrella term and it's much more about a movement, about a direction of travel rather than a very prescribed action. So one of the key things about homegrown is certainly that the food should be grown in the country where it's consumed. I mean, that's a part of the homegrown, story. that's already raises a question because food is often much more expensive locally than if you buy, imported food from massive producers, elsewhere in the world. The price of local rice in Nepal is I'm sure much higher than the price of rice brought in from some of your big neighbours. There needs to be a conscious decision about that, and that conscious decision is, but then is it better that we spend the money in our own country rather than exporting that money? And that's, I think, where, where a lot of the homegrown school feeding, energy, momentum, comes from. It's recognizing that there is a value in spending money in the local economy. This is where the term homegrown school feeding has different meanings. There are probably parts of the country which are best settled for producing some of the staples. There are some parts of the country where growing food is actually very difficult to do. That's true of all countries, right? So homegrown school feeding doesn't always mean very local food. So often the staples are produced in one part of the country and then brought to the rest of the country. But it can be interpreted In a way that Brazil has really led the world on, on thinking about this to say that 30 percent of the food for the school meals programme should be food that's produced by local farms. In fact, in Brazil, they call them family farms this is the idea of farms of not huge commercial corporate, farms, but small farms that are local to the schools. And, you know, this is not against the corporate farms, the corporate farms often are producing the staples, but that the, particularly the fresh vegetables, particularly some of the animal sourced foods like eggs and, and fish might be produced locally. And by balancing that, governments have discovered that they can inject finance into the local economies, they can build local markets that weren't necessarily there before, they can generate wealth in what is effectively the parents of the children going to the schools, because they are the local producers. And so that has a very positive economic consequence for the local communities. Local communities then can also be supported to grow and to develop their own, local economics by having this predictable, sustained demand for the school meals. And so for many governments, that's a very attractive prospect. If they're thinking about, ensuring that wealth moves around in their countries and and that the communities who are least favoured have the opportunity now to, to develop themselves, then we can see why governments would choose to to do that. So the economic investment in school meals is something that many governments have seen as a positive. I highlight Nigeria actually in that context. Nigeria has gone from feeding, I think 1. 4 million children five years ago to now feeding nearly 10 million children every day. And all of those programmes are locally funded and locally sourced. They follow essentially the, the, the Brazilian model in locally provided food. So, for many countries, the economic, the economic reality is that, that there are really positive, developmental, value in a focus on, on the, the economic returns. But if we speak to the minister of finance in those countries, the minister will say,'Yep, that's very important. That's an important part of the picture'. But what's so good about school meals is that there are these other parts. By doing that, we also benefit education, and that means we have invested in our future human capital. That's vital for us. It also means we've really leveraged what we're already paying for education, because now we're not losing a lot of that education because the children aren't able to learn. So you can see for a minister of finance, all of those things are additive. And all of those taken together are the justification for investing in school meals as an entity.
Marty Logan:Right. Okay. I hadn't really thought of it in that broad. context, being more focused on on what's happening here. We're getting pretty close to time. But is there anything else that you wanted to add?
Donald Bundy:There is something I just like to finish off on. I mentioned that in 2021 the School Meals Coalition was created, a coalition of countries. What was striking about it then and today is that that's a Coalition that involves the high income countries, the middle income countries, and the low income countries, which is really quite unusual. When we think of coalitions and groupings they tend to be very economically homogeneous. But this one really isn't. The US is a member, China is a member, so are, I think, 38 countries in Africa, so is the African Union, the European Union, and, and so forth. It's a really broad group, and that's very much reflected in, in the discussions and the thinking that our research consortium is involved with. We need to get away from the, the traditional model of the global north sort of dominating in these discussions, and we recognize that actually there's messages from the rest of the world that are crucially important to this. I would highlight, particularly Brazil, in this context. Brazil, I would say, is probably been one of the most influential countries worldwide, but also, especially South South, in sharing information. In fact, this is slightly reflected in the structure of the School Meals Coalition, because there are three, three countries that are currently lead on this: Finland, France, and, and Brazil, and from Brazil, it's President Lula, and from France, it's President Macron. And I think that's very important that we understand the level of the political engagement with, with this, but also the political breadth that's represented by that leadership team. I just wanted to, to, to share that because I work with many coalitions on other topics. I can't think of another one that has that same breadth and that same reach across nations.
Marty Logan:Right. And I, I agree. It's unusual, and it's also reflective of, you know, this school meals movement, which, five years ago, although it, it was informal, I guess, before the Coalition, I really knew very little about, and I think people globally will be surprised to see how powerful this movement has become, how it's caught people's imagination. Like you say, among them, the very top leaders of countries in the world. So, thank you for speaking about all of this today. It was really nice to, to talk to you. I know you're extremely busy and, I'm happy to get so much of your time. I hope we can do it again another day. There's still lots more that we can talk about, but for today, that's great.
Donald Bundy:It's a real pleasure, Marty, and I appreciate your thoughtful questions.
Thanks again to Donald Bundy for taking the time to speak with me about school meals worldwide. What did you think of this conversation? Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. We're(at)ipsnews.. Or, you can email me at mlogan(at)ipsnews.net. I'll talk to you next time. Strive is a production of IPS News.