During the last implementation support mission, a delegation from the Bank, accompanied by the Coordination of the Resilient Agriculture for Food Security Project (PARSA), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the World Food Programme (WFP), visited the Grand'Anse Department in December 2025 to assess the progress of the various PARSA project components, with a particular focus on school feeding programs.

The mission also provided an opportunity to inquire about the proper functioning of the canteens and the quality of meals served to students in the department. Since the 2023-2024 academic year, PARSA has been expanding the school feeding program to benefit more than 125,000 students in the Nippes, Sud, Grande Anse, and Centre Departments.

Within the framework of the PARSA project, two distinct models are being implemented. The decentralized local purchasing model is the one used for 95% of the beneficiary students. In this model, the World Food Programme (WFP) collaborates with a cooperating partner to source supplies from agricultural producer organizations located in the project's intervention area.

The second model is quite innovative and is being implemented in the communes of Chambellan and Moron in the Grand'Anse department. It grants greater autonomy to the canteen workers, who receive a fixed amount per meal and are responsible for purchasing food on the local market as well as preparing the meals. In this pilot program, no stock is kept in the school s: the products are purchased almost daily by the canteen workers. They do not receive direct compensation but earn an income based on the price of a dish and the actual expenses incurred in preparing the meals.

At the end of the mission, the delegation visited two schools benefiting from the school feeding program: the Saint-Joseph National Congregational Girls' School in Moron and the Bon Berger College, located in the commune of Chambellan, where the same visit had been conducted a year earlier.

Within the framework of the PARSA project, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR) are working together to sustainably strengthen the national school feeding system while supporting the local economy. Thus, for the 2024-2025 school year, the WFP, with all its funding, including that from PARSA, provided daily school meals to nearly 600,000 children across 10 departments, of whom approximately 400,000 directly benefit from canteens based on locally sourced food.

HL/ HaitiLibre