School feeding is a crucial tool in achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals and the Government of Ethiopia’s Education Sector Development Plan II’s aims of increasing primary school enrolment and promoting gender equality. 

Food at school helps to offset the opportunity cost of sending children to school, increases concentration and provides short-term nutritional benefits.   

However, perhaps its most significant legacy will be in the long term impacts it has on Ethiopia’s development – the future leaders, social reformers, entrepreneurs and a host of others will learn valuable transferable skills and how to apply them, they will learn the importance of literacy, numeracy, hygiene and health. They will ‘learn how to learn’ – a truly lifelong skill.