Researchers, government officials, and nutrition practitioners launched a national coordination platform on Wednesday aimed at closing the gap between Ghana’s abundant local food supply and the meals actually reaching 4.5 million schoolchildren every day, as evidence mounts that the country’s Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) is leaving significant nutritional potential untapped.
The Ghana Community of Policy and Practice (CoPP) was unveiled during a webinar on school meals and food systems, bringing together voices from agriculture, nutrition science, and education for the first time under a single coordination structure. The platform is designed to move evidence off research shelves and into practical, scalable change in school kitchens across the country.
Professor Francis Bruno Zotor of the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) set the tone for the discussions, arguing that the GSFP must be understood as something bigger than a hunger relief measure. The programme currently serves approximately 4.5 million pupils and has demonstrated consistent impact on school attendance, yet nutritional quality remains a stubborn weakness in its delivery.
Two research interventions presented at the webinar illustrated both the opportunity and the difficulty. Seth Offei of the GSFP Secretariat outlined active work to introduce soy into school meals as an affordable, locally grown protein source. Caterers are being trained on soy-based cooking techniques, while the Secretariat is building tighter links between schools and farmers currently growing soy in viable production zones.
Separately, research led by Jolene Mateko Nyako of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Food Research Institute examined why fish, despite being widely produced in Ghana, rarely appears consistently on school meal menus. The study tested fish-based product formats including powders for soups and sausage variants, working directly with caterers and suppliers to address sourcing constraints.
A structural problem underlies both efforts. Caterers under the GSFP are frequently paid several months after delivering meals, creating serious cash flow pressure that limits their ability to procure more varied and nutritious ingredients. Suppliers working with aquatic products are exploring more flexible payment arrangements to ease those constraints, but the issue points to a systemic challenge the new CoPP platform will need to engage directly.
On the demand side, Joy Murasi of the Fortified Whole Grain Alliance noted that perception shapes what foods caterers prepare and what children accept. Nutritious options such as whole grains are frequently bypassed not because they are unavailable, but because familiarity with their preparation is low. Cooking demonstrations and community engagement are being used to shift those habits in schools.
Mawuli Kushitor of UHAS added that communities show strong willingness to contribute to school feeding through land, labour, and produce, but are often excluded from the planning conversations where those contributions could be activated. In some districts, community-run school farms are already supplying nutrient-rich crops including orange-fleshed sweet potatoes directly to school kitchens.
Professor Phyllis Addo of UHAS closed the session with a direct call to all participants, underlining that no single actor can fix what is ultimately a systems problem.
The 2026 national budget allocated GH¢1.98 billion to the GSFP, signalling continued government commitment to the programme. The question the CoPP now faces is whether that investment can be directed more effectively at the nutritional outcomes, not just the number of meals served.
