Ex-ante evaluation of home-grown school feeding in Senegal

Book excerpt: Home-grown school feeding programmes have seen a considerable growth around the world. These programmes play a key role in supporting the improvement of child health and facilitating access to education, as well as in stimulating economic development through local procurement. The rigorous evaluation of the effects of these programmes on children and local economy poses several challenges due to the presence of multiple treatment arms,complex targeting criteria and the difficulties from lack of treatment randomization. This report presents the results of a simulation analysis of different food procurement modalities employed by Senegal’s current school feeding programme (SFP) by using local economy-wide impact evaluation (LEWIE). The LEWIE methodology was designed to capture both the direct and the indirect impacts of a wide range of governmental programmes and policies in local economies. The findings suggest that SFPs in Senegal have significant positive impacts on production and income within a 10-km radius of beneficiary schools. These impacts grow as SFPs increase their sourcing from local traders and food producers.