School food politics in Africa : Two Nigerian school feeding programs in comparative perspective
Abstract
- Abstract
- Free school meals can be a transformative social policy instrument, especially in the Global South. Domestically sourced school feeding programs can improve children’s food security, augment household incomes, incentivize school attendance, and support local agricultural production. Scholars have so far paid only limited attention to the political causes and processes behind school feeding programs. To contribute to a better understanding of school food politics in Africa, we study the development of two national school feeding programs in Nigeria. We reconstruct and compare the development of the Obasanjo administration’s Home-Grown School Feeding and Health Programme, implemented from 2005 to 2008, and the Buhari administration’s National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, implemented from 2016 to 2023. We argue that the relatively more successful implementation of the Buhari-era program was the result of a presidential ideology that was more supportive of social policy expansion, a policy design that was more conducive to state-level program implementation, and supportive technical assistance from the London-based Partnership for Child Development.
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https://doi.org/10.1177/14680181251387293
Global Social Policy
2025, Vol. 25(3) 492–511
© The Author(s) 2025
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DOI: 10.1177/14680181251387293
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School food politics in
Africa: Two Nigerian
school feeding programs
in comparative perspective
Tim Dorlach1
, Ugbedeojo Sule1
and Nathaniel Umukoro2
Abstract
Free school meals can be a transformative social policy instrument, especially in the
Global South. Domestically sourced school feeding programs can improve children’s
food security, augment household incomes, incentivize school attendance, and support
local agricultural production. Scholars have so far paid only limited attention to the
political causes and processes behind school feeding programs. To contribute to a better
understanding of school food politics in Africa, we study the development of two national
school feeding programs in Nigeria. We reconstruct and compare the development of
the Obasanjo administration’s Home-Grown School Feeding and Health Programme,
implemented from 2005 to 2008, and the Buhari administration’s National Home-
Grown School Feeding Programme, implemented from 2016 to 2023. We argue that
the relatively more successful implementation of the Buhari-era program was the result
of a presidential ideology that was more supportive of social policy expansion, a policy
design that was more conducive to state-level program implementation, and supportive
technical assistance from the London-based Partnership for Child Development.
Keywords
Federalism, Nigeria, policy design, presidential ideology, school feeding, school food
politics, technical assistance
1University of Bayreuth, Germany
2Western Delta University, Nigeria
Corresponding author:
Tim Dorlach, University of Bayreuth, Fritz-Hornschuch-Straße 13, 95326 Kulmbach, Germany.
Email: tim.dorlach@uni-bayreuth.de
1387293 GSP0010.1177/14680181251387293Global Social PolicyDorlach et al.
research-article2025
Article
Dorlach et al.
493
Introduction
Recent decades have witnessed the global expansion of publicly financed school feeding
programs (SFPs). Free school meals are not only ‘politically popular’ (Alderman and
Bundy, 2012: 204), they also have the potential to be transformative, especially in the
Global South. According to Thandika Mkandawire (2007) and Jimi Adesina (2009, 2011,
2015), social policies can be ‘transformative’ to the degree that they go beyond being
residual safety nets and instead fulfill multiple functions as part of a broader develop-
ment strategy.1 Broad-based, domestically sourced (‘home-grown’) SFPs, like those of
Brazil or Ghana, are an ideal-typical example of social policies that fulfill multiple func-
tions. They directly improve children’s food security and augment the incomes of poor
households (Alderman and Bundy, 2012). They also facilitate human capital formation
by incentivizing regular school attendance and enabling children to focus on learning
(Aurino et al., 2023). Moreover, they support local agricultural production by creating
‘structured demand’ through public procurement (Sumberg and Sabates-Wheeler, 2011).
Today, an estimated 418 million children benefit from SFPs globally, making school
feeding one of the world’s most extensive social programs (Bundy et al., 2024: 4, 10).
While much of this progress has been driven by the expansion of SFPs in large emerging
economies, like those of Brazil, China, and India, the coverage and generosity of SFPs
remain lowest where it is most needed, namely, in low- and lower middle-income coun-
tries, especially in Africa (WFP, 2022: 56–57). Yet, scholars of the politics of social
policy in Africa and the broader Global South rarely examine school feeding in detail
(but see Robert and Gaddis, 2025; Rutledge, 2012, 2013; Seekings, 2016, 2020b). We
therefore still know relatively little about school food politics, that is, the political causes
and processes behind the formulation, introduction, implementation, and maintenance
(or termination) of SFPs.
To contribute to a better empirical and theoretical understanding of school food poli-
tics in Africa, we first provide a comprehensive overview of the domestic and interna-
tional political dynamics of SFP development across the African continent, drawing on
existing literature as well as our own research. We then conduct a detailed case study of
school feeding in Nigeria, a lower middle-income country and federal democracy with a
population of more than 200 million. School feeding holds immense potential in Nigeria,
where undernutrition among school-aged children remains a major social problem. In
2015, 37% of all school-aged children had low height-for-age (i.e. were stunted), while
29% were underweight (Iheme et al., 2025: 5). Despite its substantive relevance, Nigeria
remains underresearched by scholars of social policy development (but see Adesina,
2012; Kpessa, 2011) and school food politics (but see Rutledge, 2013).
The development of national school feeding in Nigeria provides an interesting case to
study the political dynamics of SFP development in Africa. Since 1999, Nigeria twice
attempted to introduce national, that is, federally funded, school feeding. In 2005, the
administration of Olusegun Obasanjo introduced the Home-Grown School Feeding and
Health Programme (HGSFHP), motivated by a joint initiative of the World Food
Programme (WFP) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The
program aimed to reach 2.5 million children, but it was suspended by the Yar’Adua
administration in 2008 due to a supposed combination of non-utilization and misappro-
priation of federal funds. In 2016, the administration of Muhammadu Buhari introduced
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Global Social Policy 25(3)
the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), informed by Osun
State’s acclaimed state-level SFP and with technical assistance from the Partnership for
Child Development (PCD). At its peak, the NHGSFP reportedly reached 9.9 million
children in 2022. This program stopped being implemented by the outgoing Buhari
administration in 2023 and it was formally suspended by the Tinubu administration in
2024 on account of the misappropriation of funds by the responsible minister. While both
of these national SFPs were eventually suspended, the Buhari-era NHGSFP can be con-
sidered a relative success, as it covered more children and was implemented longer than
the Obasanjo-era HGSFHP.
In this article, we reconstruct and compare the development of these two national
SFPs. We argue that the relative success of the Buhari administration’s NHGSFP was the
result of a presidential ideology that was more supportive of social policy expansion, and
of a policy design that was more conducive to state-level program implementation. Our
analysis is based on a qualitative content analysis of 93 primary documents and seven
in-depth interviews with key informants. To make our analysis more transparent, we
present complete references to all our primary sources and more detailed information on
the conducted interviews in the online supplementary material.
School food politics in Africa: an overview
The history of publicly financed school feeding in Africa goes back to at least 1935,
when a school dairy program was introduced in South Africa. Since then, SFPs were
introduced in most African countries, although programs have varied greatly in coverage
and generosity. During the 20th century, many SFPs were operated by international
actors, in particular the WFP and Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Since the 2000s,
national governments have played an increasingly important role in the operation and
funding of SFPs, although (old and new) international actors continue to be influential
through financial and technical assistance. In this section, we provide an overview of
African school food politics up until the early 2020s.2 Empirically, we focus on three
countries whose SFPs have already been studied in some detail, namely, South Africa,
Botswana, and Ghana, and on three international actors that have been particularly active
in the promotion of school feeding across Africa, namely, the WFP, NEPAD, and Brazil
– around which we also structure this overview.
As noted above, South Africa has a particularly long history of school feeding. Public
school feeding first emerged in South Africa in 1935, when the government of the Union
of South Africa introduced a Milk and Cheese Scheme for primary-school and ‘necessi-
tous’ secondary-school children (Source 1, abbreviated S1).3 This program was moti-
vated, at least in part, by surplus dairy production (Kallaway, 1996: 3). It was also
‘racially hierarchized’, initially targeting only children of ‘European, Indian and
Coloured origin’ (Chipenda et al., 2021: 6). African children were included in 1943,
through the Native School Feeding Scheme, but this program remained ‘underfunded’
and only reached ‘a minority of African students’ (Chipenda et al., 2021: 8). After the
1948 election victory of the white-supremacist National Party and the beginning of
apartheid, all SFPs were soon dismantled (Kallaway, 1996). A major reason for this was
the National Party’s desire to end the Native School Feeding Scheme benefiting African
children (Chipenda et al., 2021: 12–17).
Dorlach et al.
495
School feeding quickly re-emerged on South Africa’s political agenda after the end of
apartheid and the 1994 election victory of Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress
(ANC) (Devereux et al., 2018: 10–12; Seekings, 2020b: 5). One of the ANC’s flagship
programs, the Primary School Nutrition Programme was launched in September 1994,
with technical assistance from the United States Department of Agriculture (S2). The
program was renamed the National School Nutrition Programme in 2006 and expanded
to include secondary school students (Devereux et al., 2018: 12). In 2018/2019, the pro-
gram reached 9.6 million school children (of a population of 58 million) on a budget of
approximately US$0.5 billion, making it one of Africa’s largest SFPs (Seekings, 2020b:
5). This reintroduction and expansion of South Africa’s SFP after 1994 was clearly
driven by South Africa’s democratization and the change in ruling party from the apart-
heid-era National Party to the ANC.
World Food Programme
Since the 1960s, the development of school feeding across Africa has been substantially
influenced by the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations’ specialized
agency for food assistance. The WFP was established in 1961 on the initiative of the
United States (Shaw, 2011), which has remained the agency’s largest and most influen-
tial donor until at least 2024 (S3). The WFP’s support for school feeding has historically
had a strong focus on Africa (Rutledge, 2013: 19). One of the first WFP-supported SFPs
was introduced in Togo in 1963, just 2 years after the agency’s creation (S4). The WFP
subsequently began operating SFPs in many other African countries, including in Lesotho
in 1965 (Devereux et al., 2018: 20) and Benin in 1967 (Gaesing et al., 2023: 10). Most
of the WFP’s food assistance during this era was sourced in-kind from surplus agricul-
tural production in the Global North (Shaw, 2011: 341). The WFP’s support for school
feeding declined during the 1980s and 1990s, when the agency adopted a more exclusive
focus on emergency relief (Shaw, 2011: 359).
The WFP’s long-term impact on SFP development is well documented for the case of
Botswana (Seekings, 2016, 2020c). Botswana introduced a large-scale SFP in 1966 in
response to a massive drought and with extensive funding from the WFP (Seekings,
2016). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, ‘Botswana received more WFP food aid per
capita than any other country’ (Seekings, 2016: 35). The WFP withdrew its support in the
1980s in light of the country’s economic development and the end of several droughts
(Seekings, 2020c: 126). Botswana’s government maintained the SFP, not least because it
had become a central source of electoral support (Seekings, 2020c: 125). This illustrates
the long-term policy effects that WFP support can have on SFPs (Seekings, 2020c: 126).
Today, Botswana’s SFP reportedly covers all of the country’s approximately 0.6 million
primary school students (WFP, 2022: 250).
Donor support for school feeding in the Global South increased again in the early
2000s. In 2000, against the background of a renewed institutional focus on development
projects and at the initiative of the United States (Shaw, 2011: 238–239; 359), the WFP
established a dedicated School Feeding Service and launched its Global School Feeding
Campaign ‘to encourage governments throughout the world to put in place national
school feeding programmes’ (S5; see S6; S7; Interview 4). The WFP has always had a
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Global Social Policy 25(3)
strong focus on Africa, where it ‘assists more people and spends more money [. . .] than
in any other continent’ (S8). Bilateral donor support for school feeding also increased in
the 2000s. In 2002, the United States launched the McGovern-Dole International Food
for Education and Child Nutrition Program, which has funded SFPs in ‘priority coun-
tries’ around the world (S9). In 2024, 25 out of 44 active McGovern-Dole programs were
implemented in Africa (S10). Some of these programs have been implemented by the
WFP, for example, in Rwanda, others by international non-governmental organizations,
such as Catholic Relief Services, for example, in Togo (S10).
New partnership for Africa’s development
In Africa, increased international donor support for school feeding coincided with the
creation, in 2001, of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) by the
Organisation of African Unity, the precursor of the African Union (Adesina, 2006: 35).
NEPAD sought to promote socioeconomic development in Africa through policy recom-
mendations inspired by the ‘post-Washington Consensus’ and in close cooperation with
donor countries and international financial institutions (Adesina, 2006: 37–42). NEPAD
identified ‘social safety net mechanisms’, including school feeding, as ‘essential for
Africa’s hungry poor’ (S11). On the suggestion of the WFP and the United Nations
Millennium Project’s Hunger as well as Education and Gender Task Forces, NEPAD
adopted ‘home-grown’ school feeding as a central policy recommendation (Gelli et al.,
2010: 4; Interview 6). Home-grown school feeding seeks to ‘link school feeding to agri-
cultural development through the purchase and use of locally and domestically produced
food’ (Gelli et al., 2010: 1; see Morgan and Sonnino, 2008: 150; Sumberg and Sabates-
Wheeler, 2011).
In 2003, the WFP and NEPAD agreed to launch a pilot program to support the adop-
tion of home-grown school feeding and prepared a ‘joint concept paper [. . .] to help
governments plan for implementation of this programme at the national level’ (S12). Ten
member states of the African Union, including Nigeria, were eventually selected to
implement national pilot programs in 2005, although in the context of ongoing disagree-
ments over how much of the program funding national governments would have to con-
tribute (S13; S14; Morgan and Sonnino, 2008: 157–158).
In Ghana, the NEPAD initiative facilitated the introduction of a large-scale national
SFP. Humanitarian aid organizations, such as the Catholic Relief Services and the WFP,
had operated smaller SFPs in Ghana since the 1950s (Morgan and Sonnino, 2008;
Sulemana, 2016: 58). The NEPAD pilot program motivated the 2005 introduction of the
country’s first national SFP, the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP). The intro-
duction was co-funded by the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) (Morgan
and Sonnino, 2008: 157–158). Ghana’s SFP was introduced by the center-right govern-
ment of John Kufuor (2001–2009), during a period characterized by high electoral com-
petition and a ‘cross-party consensus on the need for a comprehensive social protection
system’ (Grebe, 2015: 3). Since the mid-2010s, Ghana’s SFP has been under significant
fiscal pressure, as the country has gone through a protracted economic crisis and multiple
loan agreements with the International Monetary Fund (Mohammed, 2021). Today,
Dorlach et al.
497
Ghana’s SFP covers an estimated 3.4 million children, about 55% of all primary school
students (WFP, 2022: 252).
Ghana’s SFP has been demonstrated to have clear positive effects on educational
attainment (Aurino et al., 2023). Yet, the program has also suffered from politicized
implementation. While the GSFP was introduced with the intent to target the ‘most
deprived districts/communities’, expenditure allocations came to starkly advantage
regions that were comparatively wealthy but political strongholds of the ruling party
(Abdulai and Hickey, 2016: 67–68). Schools have been more likely to be included ‘if the
headteacher and [local District] Assembly member have strong linkages with the party in
power’ (Botchwey, 2021: 72). Catering contracts are often awarded to members of the
region’s governing party, especially its women’s wing, thus ‘rewarding political party
activists and supporters’ but leading to lower ‘quantity and quality of meals that are
served’ (Mohammed, 2022: 908–909). It was evidence of such ‘excessively politicized’
implementation that led the Netherlands Development Organization to withhold its fund-
ing for the program at least once (Abdulai and Hickey, 2016: 70).
Brazil’s South–South development cooperation
Since the late 2000s, Brazil has been a new important supporter of global SFP develop-
ment, especially during the left-wing presidencies of Lula da Silva (2003–2010, 2023–
today) and Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016). Brazil significantly expanded its own National
School Feeding Program and introduced extensive local purchasing requirements in the
2000s (Sidaner et al., 2013). Brazil’s SFP has since become a global model, which
Brazilian state actors have actively promoted through South–South development coop-
eration (Leite et al., 2015; Nehring and Hoffmann, 2017). These efforts were institution-
alized through the 2011 establishment of the WFP Center of Excellence against Hunger
in Brasilia (Dri and Molinari Da Silva, 2021). Primarily financed by Brazil and focused
on technical assistance, the center organizes frequent visits by delegations from low- and
middle-income countries, often with a focus on Brazil’s SFP (Dri and Molinari Da Silva,
2021: 676).
Brazil’s efforts to promote school feeding had a strong focus on Africa. From 2012 to
2016, Brazil cooperated with the WFP, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), in imple-
menting the ‘Purchase from Africans for Africa’ program, which promoted Brazil-
inspired local school food procurement in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, and
Senegal (Nehring and Hoffmann, 2017: 41–42). Brazilian advocacy also contributed to
the African Union’s adoption of home-grown school feeding as a high-level policy goal
and the launch of the African Day of School Feeding in 2016 (S15). However, the policy
impact of Brazil’s efforts to promote school feeding in Africa remains unclear. In
Mozambique, for instance, Brazilian technical and financial support facilitated the 2013
introduction of a national SFP closely modeled on the Brazilian model, but program
funding and implementation have remained weak (Milhorance et al., 2019: 449–454).
In conclusion, there have been various international influences on the development of
SFPs in Africa. Since the post-colonial era, international donors have been closely
involved in the financing of SFPs, often with operational support from the WFP or
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Global Social Policy 25(3)
nongovernmental organizations. Since the 2000s, the African Union and Brazil have
emerged as new advocates of school feeding in Africa, focused on South–South technical
assistance. Regarding the domestic political dynamics of SFPs, one can note that in
South Africa the 1994 reintroduction and subsequent expansion of school feeding was
led by the broadly center–left African National Congress in the wake of the country’s
democratization. In Ghana, in contrast, the 2005 introduction of a national SFP was led
by the center–right government of John Kufour and his New Patriotic Party in a context
of high electoral competition. This suggests that school feeding can be promoted by
political leaders and parties of different ideological orientations, while generally benefit-
ing from democratic political competition.
Political, economic, and social development in
Nigeria’s Fourth Republic
To contribute to a better understanding of the political dynamics of school feeding in
Africa, we conduct a case study of the development of school feeding in Nigeria. In
2018, Nigeria was home to 206 million people, including around 37 million children in
primary-school age (6–11 years), of which, however, only about 64% regularly attended
school (S16). In 2015, 37% of all school-aged children had low height-for-age (i.e. were
stunted), while 29% were underweight (Iheme et al., 2025: 5). Broad-based school feed-
ing could go a long way toward reducing undernutrition, while incentivizing school
attendance and supporting local agricultural production (Adeyanju et al., 2024). Before
turning to a detailed analysis of the development of school feeding, we provide some
relevant background on Nigeria’s recent political, economic, and social development.
Nigeria gained political independence from the British Empire in 1960. Its Fourth
Republic, that is, the country’s fourth post-colonial period of democratic government,
was established in 1999. It is a federal republic, in which 36 state governments are led by
governors and the federal government is led by a president. Since 1999, Nigeria has had
five different presidents, all coming from Nigeria’s two major parties, the People’s
Democratic Party (PDP), founded in 1998, and the All Progressives Congress (APC),
founded in 2013. According to the Varieties of Democracy database, Nigeria was an
‘electoral autocracy’ from 2000 to 2010, an ‘electoral democracy’ from 2011 to 2020,
and has been an ‘electoral autocracy’ again since 2021. Throughout its Fourth Republic,
Nigeria has suffered from high levels of political corruption (Igiebor, 2019).
Nigeria’s economic development since 1999 has been volatile. Nominal gross domes-
tic product (GDP) per capita rose steadily from US$481 in 1999 to US$3089 in 2014 but
has since fallen again sharply, reaching US$807 in 2024 (S17). Nigeria made the transi-
tion from a low-income to a lower middle-income country in 2008, limiting its eligibility
for international development aid (Dolan et al., 2020). Agriculture continues to make up
the largest part of the Nigerian economy and small-scale, subsistence agriculture remains
common. Government revenues, however, depend overwhelmingly on oil exports, which
has made them extremely dependent on world oil prices. Nigeria’s poverty rate has risen
since the 1970s and has since remained persistently high. In 2018/2019, 31% of Nigeria’s
population lived below the extreme poverty line of US$2.15 per person per day (S18).
Dorlach et al.
499
This combination of extensive oil revenues and increasing poverty has made Nigeria a
frequently cited example of the ‘resource curse’ (Idemudia, 2012).
Social policy development during Nigeria’s Fourth Republic has occurred in the after-
math of a period of authoritarian neoliberalism in the 1980s and 1990s, characterized by
austerity measures, structural adjustment policies, and retrenchment of social programs
(Ihonvbere, 1993: 142). Since Nigeria’s redemocratization in 1999, there has been a
renewed political focus on social reform. For instance, in 2001, the Obasanjo administra-
tion introduced the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), including the
well-known ‘Keke NAPEP’ scheme, which subsidized the acquisition of tricycles to
support employment generation (Paul and Ojo, 2017). In 2004, the Obasanjo administra-
tion also introduced a comprehensive pension reform, which replaced the country’s frag-
mented and reportedly largely ‘bankrupt’ pension system with ‘fully-funded individual
retirement saving accounts’ (Kpessa, 2011: 96–97), modeled after Chile’s privatized
pension system (Casey and Dostal, 2008: 241). In 2007, the Yar’Adua administration
introduced a small conditional cash transfer program, In Care of the People (COPE),
initially financed through an international debt relief program (Umukoro, 2013). In 2014,
the Jonathan administration adopted the National Health Act to make healthcare funding
more sustainable (Chukwuma, 2023; Chukwuma and Obi, 2025). In 2016, the Buhari
administration introduced four new social programs under the umbrella of the National
Social Investment Programme (NSIP), including an expanded conditional cash transfer
program (Ajah, 2023). Despite all these new programs, Nigeria’s social policy system
remains limited in coverage and chronically underfunded (Hagen-Zanker and Holmes,
2012).
The development of national school feeding in Nigeria
Since redemocratization in 1999, Nigeria twice operated national, that is, federally
funded, SFPs, first from 2005 to 2008 and again from 2016 to 2023. In the following, we
reconstruct the development of national school feeding in Nigeria. Table 1 provides an
initial, schematic overview of national school feeding development during the five most
recent presidential administrations.
Obasanjo administration: introduction of the HGSFHP
The development of publicly financed school feeding in Nigeria can be traced back to
1999, when Olusegun Obasanjo (PDP) became Nigeria’s first president after the restora-
tion of democracy.4 In that year, Kano State introduced a state-level SFP, which was
implemented during the first administration of governor Rabiu Kwankwaso (PDP), from
1999 until 2003 (S20). At the national level, the Obasanjo administration incorporated
school feeding into its flagship education reform (S21). Nigeria’s 2004 Universal Basic
Education Act required ‘every [state] government in Nigeria’ to provide ‘free, compul-
sory and universal basic education for every child of primary and junior secondary
school age’ as well as related services, notably including ‘free lunch’ (S22; see S23).
The idea of introducing a national SFP in Nigeria was strongly influenced by global
and regional policy debates, in particular those surrounding the creation of NEPAD in
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Global Social Policy 25(3)
2001. As discussed above, NEPAD had adopted ‘home-grown’ school feeding as a policy
recommendation for all AU member states and, together with the WFP, had launched a
pilot program to support the introduction of national programs. Nigeria was among the
10 member states that participated in this NEPAD pilot program. The Obasanjo adminis-
tration’s willingness to participate in this initiative was unsurprising given that Obasanjo
was one of NEPAD’s ‘founding fathers’ and the first chairperson of NEPAD’s Heads of
State and Government Implementation Committee from 2001 to 2003 (Alo, 2013).
Preparations for a national school feeding pilot program under the NEPAD banner
intensified in late 2004, when the WFP organized two technical missions to Nigeria for
consultations with the federal government (S14). According to the WFP’s mission report,
the Nigerian government planned to introduce the pilot program in the 2005/2006 aca-
demic year (S14). In an apparent attempt to increase high-level political commitment to
the program, the WFP invited Obasanjo to address its executive board meeting in June
2005 and to be the ‘WFP’s ambassador in advocating to end child hunger’ (S24). Yet,
there apparently were different expectations regarding the funding of the program.
According to the WFP, the ‘project budget’ was ‘expected to be shared among the fed-
eral, state and local governments’ and a non-trivial 0.2% of Nigeria’s federal budget was
expected to be ‘earmarked’ for the pilot program (S14). By contrast, Nigeria’s education
minister, in December 2004, expected to receive a ‘50 per cent matching fund grant from
NEPAD’ (S25; see S13) for the pilot program. It appears that this matching fund never
materialized, similar to what occurred during the introduction of Ghana’s NEPAD-
motivated SFP (Morgan and Sonnino, 2008: 157–158) and likely due to NEPAD’s own
funding problems (Alo, 2013: 301).
Parallel to these efforts of NEPAD and the WFP to motivate the Nigerian government
to implement its model of ‘home-grown’ school feeding, President Obasanjo also sup-
ported Nasarawa State to partner with Tetra Pak in developing an alternative school feed-
ing model. Tetra Pak is a global food packaging corporation, originally from Sweden,
specialized in carton packaging for liquids. Since the 1960s, Tetra Pak has promoted the
development of school milk programs in the Global South, including in Kenya (Interview
4). In 2002, Tetra Pak established a dedicated Food for Development unit, which has
Table 1. National school feeding program development since 1999.
Period
Presidency (party)
School feeding program development
1999–2007
Olusegun Obasanjo (PDP)
Introduction of NEPAD-motivated national
SFP (HGSFHP) in 2005
2007–2010
Umaru Yar’Adua (PDP)
Suspension of HGSFHP in 2008
2010–2015
Goodluck Jonathan (PDP)
Consultations on potential reintroduction
of national SFP in 2014
2015–2023
Muhammadu Buhari (APC)
Introduction of national SFP (NHGSFP) in
2016, silent suspension in early 2023
2023–today
Bola Tinubu (APC)
Formal suspension of NHGSFP in 2024,
reintroduction announced in May 2025
(still pending as of September 2025)
Dorlach et al.
501
worked to support child nutrition and agricultural development in the Global South,
while ‘creating and developing new markets for Tetra Pak’ (S26). In South Africa, Food
for Development developed the Nutri-Sip, a fortified maize- and soy-based liquid feed in
Tetra Pak packaging. The Nutri-Sip was developed to be ‘used in South African school-
feeding programs’ (S26), but it was never adopted by any of South Africa’s provincial
governments (Interview 4).
In 2004, Tetra Pak became involved in Nigerian school feeding policy. In February
2004, Sweden’s ambassador to Nigeria helped set up a meeting between Tetra Pak and
President Obasanjo (S26; see S27; S28). The meeting focused on Tetra Pak’s experience
with Nutri Sip and on the ‘question of dairy development in Nigeria’ (S26). Obasanjo
appointed Abdullahi Adamu (PDP), then governor of Nasarawa State and owner of a
commercial dairy farm (S29), to chair a new presidential committee on dairy develop-
ment, which was to ‘prepare a report on the status of Nigerian milk production and its
capacity to support a school milk program’ (S26). Obasanjo, Adamu, and Tetra Pak
reconvened in June 2004. After concluding that Nigerian milk production was too ‘frag-
mented’ to support a school milk program, they decided that Nasarawa State would intro-
duce a state-level school feeding pilot program using Tetra Pak’s Nutri Sip, which would
be imported from South Africa until a local Nigerian alternative became available (S26).
Funded by the Nasarawa State government, the program was implemented from June
2005 until the end of Adamu’s gubernatorial term in April 2007 (S19; S30; Interview 4).5
In mid-2005, it seemed like Nasarawa State’s Nutri Sip model could become the blue-
print for Nigeria’s emerging national SFP. Governor Adamu ‘believed’ that the model
would be ‘extended into additional States’ (S31). But the scheme soon faced criticisms,
including that a liquid feed would not be filling enough and that the idea of importing it
contradicted the vision of home-grown school feeding (S30; Interview 7). This led to the
swift development of a parallel pilot program in Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital, which
was supported by UNICEF and provided cooked ‘complete’ meals (S32). Following
these state-level experiments in Nasarawa and Abuja, the federal government launched
its Home-Grown School Feeding and Health Programme (HGSFHP) in September 2005
(S33). The program’s funding was shared between the federal, state, and local govern-
ments through a counterpart funding system (S33). In 2006, the program expanded to 11
additional states (S34; S35), all of which opted for cooked meals rather than the Nutri-
Sip model.
Yar’Adua administration: termination of federal funding
In April 2007, Umaru Yar’Adua (PDP) was elected president of Nigeria. In February
2008, his administration halted the payment of SFP funds to state governments due to an
apparent combination of non-utilization and misappropriation of federal funds. The
Universal Basic Education Commission’s executive secretary noted that ‘about N3.3 bil-
lion is currently lying unused in the vaults of the Central Bank because State govern-
ments cannot come forward to ask for more funds as they could not account for the
money collected earlier’ (S36; S37). The Ministry of Education highlighted state govern-
ments’ limited political commitment, noting that ‘you can’t compel them if they don’t
put down their counterparts funding’ (S38). After this loss of federal funding, all but one
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state government terminated their SFPs (S39; see Drake et al., 2016: 388), marking the
end of Nigeria’s NEPAD-motivated home-grown SFP.
The only state-level SFP that survived this federal funding termination was Osun
State’s. Launched in 2006, under Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola (PDP), Osun State’s
SFP was also the only state-level program that covered all public primary schools (S34;
S40) and it quickly became the poster child of Nigerian school feeding (S41). The sub-
sequent administration of Governor Rauf Aregbesola (APC) decided to maintain the pro-
gram but reformed and renamed it (Drake et al., 2016: 388; S42; S43; Interview 7). In
November 2012, Osun State and the London-based Partnership for Child Development
(which would later play a key role in national policy development) signed the Osun
Elementary School Feeding Transition Strategy Plan to strengthen program implementa-
tion and sustainability (S43).
Jonathan administration: renewed interest
Following the death of President Yar’Adua, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan (PDP)
was appointed interim president in May 2010 and was eventually elected president in
April 2011. In 2014, the Jonathan administration signaled interest in potentially reintro-
ducing school feeding after advocacy from global actors (S44; S45). In May 2014, con-
sultations were held in Abuja and Osun State with the Partnership for Child Development,
the World Bank, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, recommending increased
funding, improved inter-ministerial collaboration, and policy institutionalization (S46).
However, no tangible policy progress was made during the Jonathan administration.
Buhari administration: introduction and silent suspension of the NHGSFP
Ahead of the 2015 elections, the All Progressives Congress (APC), an opposition party
established in 2013, began to champion the issue of school feeding. At the time, the APC
sought to position itself as a ‘progressive’ and welfare-oriented alternative to the PDP,
which had ruled Nigeria since 1999 (see Husaini, 2023). The APC’s 2014 manifesto
explicitly promised to ‘introduce free daily school meals for all primary school children’
(S47). The APC eventually won the 2015 presidential elections with 54% of the vote, the
smallest margin of victory since 1999, and President Muhammadu Buhari took office in
May 2015. Buhari was joined by his Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who had played a
central role in drafting the social policy component of the APC’s 2014 manifesto (S48)
and would play a crucial role in the development of the Buhari administration’s school
feeding policy.
After its close election victory and its ousting of the PDP, the Buhari administration
seemed motivated to deliver on campaign promises. In September 2015, Vice President
Osinbajo reaffirmed that a ‘free feeding scheme’ was a ‘core project of the Federal
Government’ (S49). In December 2015, the federal government earmarked 500 billion
naira in its 2016 budget proposal for a national SFP and three other new social programs
under the umbrella of the newly created National Social Investment Programme (NSIP)
(S50), which would be directly coordinated by the office of the Vice President (S51;
S52).
Dorlach et al.
503
In January 2016, the Buhari administration presented the London-based Partnership
for Child Development (PCD) as its main technical advisor for the development and
implementation of its new SFP (S53). PCD’s work is focused on school-based health and
nutrition interventions in low- and middle-income countries. Since its establishment in
1992, PCD has received support from, among others, the World Bank, the World Health
Organization, the United Kingdom’s former Department for International Development,
the Wellcome Trust, and the Gates Foundation (S54; S55; S56). Based at Imperial
College London since the early 2000s, PCD conducts policy-focused research and pro-
vides technical assistance on policy development and implementation (Interview 1).
PCD began promoting SFPs in the 2000s (S55), including in Ghana and Kenya. In 2009,
PCD received a 5-year, US$12 million grant from the Gates Foundation to expand its
work on home-grown school feeding, including in Nigeria (S56; S57).
The federal government’s decision to work with PCD was facilitated by Osun State
governor Aregbesola (APC), who had been closely working with PCD since 2012 (S53).
As part of PCD’s technical assistance, its Nigerian country director, Abimbola Adesanmi,
who previously had worked with Osun State’s SFP, was seconded to the office of the
Vice President as program manager of the new national SFP. Building on the 2014 con-
sultations described above and with financial support from the Gates Foundation, the
World Bank and the Vitol Foundation (funded by Dutch oil trading company Vitol), PCD
collaborated with federal ministries, NEPAD, and state representatives to develop the
Nigeria Home Grown School Feeding Strategic Plan 2016–2020 (S46).
In June 2016, Vice President Osinbajo officially launched Nigeria’s new National
Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) with the presentation of the above-
mentioned strategic plan and the inauguration of a national coordinating team, led by
PCD’s Adesanmi (S58; S59). In July 2016, a delegation from the Office of the Vice
President and seven other states carried out a 3-day study trip to Osun State (S60). This
program launch occurred a month after the long-delayed passage of Nigeria’s 2016
budget (S61). This first budget of the Buhari administration represented an attempt at
fiscal expansion and deficit spending in a context of falling global oil prices (S62). It
specifically earmarked 93 billion naira for the NHGSFP (S63).
In December 2016, implementation of the NHGSFP began in Anambra State, comple-
menting pre-existing state-level programs in Osun and Kaduna (S64; S65). The program
then gradually expanded. In November 2017, the NHGSFP was being implemented 19
states and reportedly reached 5.2 million beneficiaries. In 2018/2019, the official cover-
age of the NHGSFP reached 9.2 million children (S66). The NHGSFP used a shared
funding system, in which the federal government financed school meals for students in
primary classes 1 to 3, while state governments financed meals for primary classes 4 to
6. As this was not a counterpart funding mechanism, the federal government would fund
school feeding for the first 3 primary school years, even if state governments did not
provide funding to continue school feeding during subsequent primary school years
(S67).
After its 2019 re-election victory, with 56% of the vote, the Buhari administration
transferred the responsibility over the NHGSFP (and all other NSIP programs) from the
Office of the Vice President to the newly created Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs,
Disaster Management, and Social Development to ‘institutionalize’ these social
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programs (S68). The subsequent development of the NHGSFP was complicated by a
series of interrelated crises. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to comprehensive
school closures and the concomitant suspension of school feeding, which significantly
worsened poorer households’ food insecurity (Abay et al., 2021). The pandemic together
with falling global oil prices also plunged Nigeria into an economic recession, with GDP
per capita contracting by 4.4% in 2020 (S69).
After the pandemic-related disruptions of 2020, school feeding resumed in most parts
of the country (S70). In 2022, official coverage of the NHGSFP rebounded to 9.9 million
(Adesanmi et al., 2024: 9). In the same year, the federal government also raised the daily
rate it pays per child from N70 to N100 (S71). While this was a significant nominal
increase of 43%, consumer prices had actually increased by more than twice that rate
(93%) between 2016 and 2021 (S72; see Adeyanju et al., 2024: 16). Also in 2022, the
federal government, together with the WFP, began to develop a National Home-Grown
School Feeding Policy, that is, a higher-level framework document, which the Buhari
administration approved in May 2023, its final month in office (S73), suggesting that it
had an interest in the institutionalization and continuation of the NHGSFP.
It appears, however, that the NHGSFP stopped being implemented in various parts of
the country in early 2023, that is, during the final months of the Buhari administration.
Investigative reporting in five states suggests that the federal government systematically
stopped paying school meal caterers in late 2022, who, in turn, stopped providing school
meals as of the early 2023 (S74). It is not entirely clear why the federal government
stopped paying school meal caterers in late 2022, especially with presidential elections
scheduled for 25 February 2023. There were some accusations that Buhari’s faction
within the APC was trying to sabotage the presidential bid of Bola Tinubu, who had been
selected as the APC’s presidential nominee but was from a rivaling faction within the
party (S75).
This silent suspension of the program also coincided with a peculiar economic crisis.
In October 2022, the government had announced a comprehensive currency reform to
replace existing banknotes. Nigerians were asked to deposit their old banknotes by the
end of January 2023 and later withdraw new banknotes. The problem, however, was that,
in early 2023, ‘few [new banknotes] were available’, leading to serious ‘cash shortages’
and leaving many Nigerians unable to ‘buy food or medicine, despite having money in
the bank’ (S76). Hence, even if some caterers continued to be paid into their accounts,
they might have been unable to withdraw enough cash to buy food on the market in early
2023. While the exact reasons remain unclear, subsequent reports confirmed that the
Buhari administration had suspended the program during its final months in office (S77;
S78).
Tinubu administration: formal suspension and planned relaunch
Bola Tinubu (APC) won Nigeria’s presidential elections in February 2023 and took
office in May 2023. His administration initially announced that it would ‘reintroduce’ the
NHGSFP (S77). However, in January 2024, the Tinubu administration formally sus-
pended the NHGSFP and all other NSIP programs, initially for a period of 6 weeks, with
reference to the ‘ongoing investigation of alleged malfeasance in the management’ of
Dorlach et al.
505
these programs (S79; S80). Shortly after, Tinubu also suspended his Minister of
Humanitarian Affairs, Betta Edu, and initiated an investigation against her and her pre-
decessor, Sadiya Umar Farouk, for alleged misappropriation of funds. In October 2024,
Edu was officially replaced (S81). This broader corruption scandal and investigation
resulted in the suspension of the NHGSFP.
While this corruption scandal was the trigger for the Tinubu administration’s formal
suspension of the NHGSFP, the government likely welcomed the reduced expenditure.
Since Nigeria’s 2020 recession, economic growth remained minimal, while inflation and
government debt continued to grow (S69). The Tinubu administration responded to this
economic crisis with a series of fiscal reforms that have been described as ‘shock ther-
apy’ (S82), including the unpopular removal of the country’s fuel subsidy (S83), a failed
attempt to increase the value added tax (S84), and an early loan repayment to the
International Monetary Fund as a ‘strong signal of fiscal responsibility’ (S85). The con-
tinued suspension of the NSIP social programs, justified by the ongoing corruption
investigation, arguably aided the government in its single-minded pursuit of fiscal
consolidation.
In May 2025, the Tinubu administration announced that it would reintroduce school
feeding, under the rebranded Renewed Hope National Home-Grown School Feeding
Programme (RH-NHGSFP) (S86; S87). In September 2025, an NSIP official ambi-
tiously suggested that the program could reach up to 50 million children (S88). PCD,
which was influential in the initial development of the NHGSFP during the Buhari
administration, continues to work with the Nigerian government, including through the
preparation of a so-called ‘Value for Money’ study (S89). The federal government also
re-engaged with Tetra Pak about a potential ‘partnership’ (S90). However, as of
September 2025, it remains to be seen if, when and how the Tinubu administration will
reintroduce national school feeding in Nigeria.
Comparative and theoretical discussion
In the previous section, we reconstructed the development of two Nigerian SFPs, both of
which were eventually suspended. Despite the clearly flawed implementation of both
programs (S78; S91; S92), we posit that the Buhari-era NHGSFP should be considered a
case of relative success, as it covered significantly more children and was implemented
significantly longer than the Obasanjo-era HGSFHP. The following section therefore
conducts a (within-case) comparison of these two SFPs to explain the relatively more
successful implementation of the NHGSFP. Theoretically, this analysis engages with and
contributes to the literature on social policy development in Africa (see Lavers and
Hickey, 2016; Seekings, 2019).
To begin with, the more effective implementation of the Buhari-era NHGSFP was
rooted in the Buhari administration’s higher political commitment to national school
feeding. This difference in political commitment was driven by the different welfare
ideologies of Buhari and Obasanjo and their respective parties (and party factions).
While scholars of Nigerian party politics have argued that the broader economic ideolo-
gies of the PDP and APC have been largely similar (Egwim, 2022; Husaini, 2024), we
find that the APC, at least under Buhari, has been more open than the PDP to expanding
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(tax-financed) social assistance programs. Indeed, while the most significant social
reform of the Obasanjo administration was arguably the privatization of the pension
system (Kpessa, 2011), the most important social reform of the Buhari administration
was the introduction of four new social assistance programs under the umbrella of the
NSIP, including the NHGSFP. As regards school feeding, the PDP under Obasanjo took
up the issue in an ad hoc manner, on the suggestion of NEPAD and the WFP, while the
APC incorporated school feeding in its original party manifesto. It appears though that
this ideological difference is less the result of differences in (stable) party ideologies but
rather presidential ideologies, characterizing the specific beliefs of presidents and their
factions. Hence, the openness to the expansion of school feeding and other social pro-
grams was a specific ideological feature of ‘Buharism’ (Husaini, 2023), especially given
the ongoing suspension of school feeding under the Tinubu administration. This high-
lights that differences in presidential ideologies of welfare are consequential for the
development of social policy in Africa (see Seekings, 2020a).
A second major factor that contributed to the relative success of Buhari’s NHGSFP
was the specific design of the program’s funding mechanism, which proved to be more
conducive to state-level program implementation in the context of Nigerian federalism.
Obasanjo’s HGSFHP used a counterpart funding mechanism, in which state govern-
ments needed to ‘put down their counterpart funding’ (S38) before receiving federal
funding for their state-level SFPs. While the purpose of the mechanism was clearly to
motivate further state spending on school feeding, in practice it resulted in federal funds
‘lying unused in the vaults of the Central Bank’ (S36), as only very few states were able
or willing to sustainably match federal funding (Interview 2). In contrast, Buhari’s
NHGSFP used a split funding mechanism, in which the federal government funded
school feeding for primary classes one to three, leaving it to state governments to fund
additional feeding for primary classes four to six. Again, only few state governments
were able or willing to complement federal funding, but as many as 19 of Nigeria’s 36
states implemented school feeding for the first three primary classes, enabling the
NHGSFP to reportedly reach almost 10 million children. This confirms that policy design
is crucial for effective policy implementation.
Regarding the involvement of international actors, it is interesting to note that larger
international advocates of school feeding only had limited impact in Nigeria. Obasanjo’s
HGSFHP was explicitly motivated by an initiative of the WFP and NEPAD but was sus-
pended after only 3 years. The WFP and NEPAD’s influence was likely limited, as
Nigeria received no multilateral or bilateral donor support for its HGSFHP – in contrast
to Ghana, which received funding from the Netherlands Development Organization for
the concurrent launch of its Ghana School Feeding Programme. Regarding the South–
South development cooperation promoted by Brazil, there was an early statement by a
Buhari administration official that Nigeria’s SFP was ‘to be fashioned after the Brazilian
model’ (S93), but in practice there was only limited exchange and technical cooperation
between the two countries (Interview 2). In contrast, we have demonstrated that techni-
cal assistance from PCD, which has so far not been considered in the literature on school
food politics, played a significant role in influencing the policy design of the politically
more sustainable Buhari-era NHGSFP.
Dorlach et al.
507
Conclusion
In this article, we have examined the development of national school feeding in Nigeria
since 1999. More specifically, we have reconstructed and compared the development of
two national SFPs: the Obasanjo administration’s HGSFHP, which was implemented
from 2005 until 2008, and the Buhari administration’s NHGSFP, which was implemented
from 2016 until 2023. While both programs were eventually suspended, we have argued
that Buhari’s NHGSFP should be considered a relative success, as it reached up to 10
million children over a period of 7 years. We have argued that this relative success of the
NHGSFP was the result of a presidential ideology that was more supportive of social
policy expansion, and of a policy design that was more conducive to state-level program
implementation. Domestic policymaking was supported by technical assistance from the
London-based Partnership for Child Development.
Given the transformative potential of SFPs, scholars should continue to study school
food politics in Africa and the broader Global South. Future research should focus on
still largely unexplored national SFPs, for example, those of Burkina Faso and Kenya,
pioneering subnational programs, for example, those of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and
Osun State (Nigeria), as well as other international actors that have promoted school
feeding, for example, Catholic Relief Services and the School Meals Coalition. Such
research has important implications for school feeding policy and, more generally, the
potential to contribute to a better understanding of social policy development in Africa.
Acknowledgements
For comments and suggestions that helped improve this article, we thank Arlene Mitchell, Kevin
Morgan, Ivica Petrikova, Maryanne Wamahiu, the reviewers and editors of this journal, as well as
participants at the 2023 World Congress of Sociology of the International Sociological Association
(ISA) and the 2024 General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research
(ECPR). We also thank Bernice Apemiye, Victoria Feitosa and Raphael Katz-Zeitlin for excellent
research assistance.
ORCID iDs
Tim Dorlach
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3916-0082
Ugbedeojo Sule
https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4116-1947
Nathaniel Umukoro
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3335-6017
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article: Nathaniel Umukoro received financial support for the research from
the University of Bayreuth Centre of International Excellence ‘Alexander von Humboldt’.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article.
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Global Social Policy 25(3)
Supplemental material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
Notes
1.
The five functions of (transformative) social policy identified by this approach are protec-
tion, redistribution, production, reproduction, as well as nation-building or social cohesion
(Adesina, 2011: 455).
2.
Our analysis does not yet consider the establishment of the international School Meals
Coalition in 2021 (see Megersa et al., 2023) or the United States’ sweeping withdrawal from
international development cooperation in 2025 (see Haug et al., 2025).
3.
Complete references to all our primary sources can be found in the online supplementary
material.
4.
There is little evidence of any public school feeding programs (SFPs) in Nigeria before 1999,
except for a donor-funded school milk program that was briefly implemented by regional
governments in the early days after independence (S19).
5.
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a public–private partnership ‘focused
on reducing micronutrient deficiencies through food fortification’ (Wamahiu et al., 2025: 9),
showed substantial interest in the program, funding a scientific evaluation (Aaron et al., 2011)
and the preparation of a business case (S26).
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Author biographies
Tim Dorlach is Junior Professor of Global Nutrition and Health Policy at the University of
Bayreuth, Germany. His research focuses on the politics of nutrition, health, and social policy in
the Global South.
Ugbedeojo Sule is a Research Assistant at the Junior Professorship of Global Nutrition and Health
Policy, University of Bayreuth, Germany. His research focuses on health systems, global health,
and nutrition policy.
Nathaniel Umukoro is Professor of International Affairs and Security Studies in the Department
of Political Science and Dean of the College of Postgraduate Studies at Western Delta University,
Nigeria. His research focuses on social protection and human security, especially in Africa.
Subjects
People & roles
Origins & context
- Title
- School food politics in Africa : Two Nigerian school feeding programs in comparative perspective
- Publication type
- Article
- Language
- English
- Journal
- Global Social Policy
- Year
- 2025
- volume
- 25
- issue
- 3
- Page start
- 492
- Page end
- 511
- Status
- Peer reviewed
- Relation
- Open Access Publizieren
Identifiers & sources
- Source ID (eref-/epub-)
- eref-96628
- ISSN
- 1741-2803
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