Home-Grown School Meals: Feeding Zambia's Classrooms, Sustaining the Gains

A new M31 Research policy brief examines Zambia's Home-Grown School Meals (HGSM) programme, which provides locally sourced meals to about one million learners across 39 districts in all ten provinces. Drawing on field research in Monze, Mazabuka and Chisamba districts, the brief finds that the meals are lifting enrolment, attendance and concentration in class, but that narrow diets, fragile supply chains and heavy donor dependence put those gains at risk. It sets out three priorities: diversify the food basket, invest in local supply and storage, and institutionalise funding and training so the programme can last beyond external support.