WFP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific - 2016 SPRs RBB 2016 SPRs by country | 页面 451

Standard Project Report 2016
literacy support along with school meals. This helped to map out overlaps among the schools selected by Save the
Children and WFP, and put funds into schools without an ongoing EGR programme. Similarly, WFP ensured that
schools where other partners implemented their activities also received WFP mid-day meals, water, sanitation and
hygiene (WASH) awareness and school infrastructure development activities. Close coordination with fora such as
the “WASH in Schools” thematic group, the National Early Grade Reading Programme and UNICEF's education and
WASH teams, has helped WFP to avoid duplication and engage in joint planning where applicable. Through
working together with other stakeholders in the same schools, WFP was able to extend the impact of funds used for
school meals to include a comprehensive package of services for the children.
In a new venture, WFP initiated preliminary support to the Ministry of Education to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of
the Nepal school meals programme in 2017, building on WFP's global partnership with MasterCard. This exercise
will serve two important purposes: i) build the evidence base for decision-making in Nepal's national school meals
programme; and ii) contribute to advocacy for greater investment in school meals, leading to developing a fully
homegrown and sustainable national school meals programme.
WFP continued to partner with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United
Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and the International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD) on a joint programme for rural women's economic empowerment. Each agency
provided its expertise to support women beneficiaries with opportunities in agricultural livelihoods. This joint activity
helped WFP to leverage funds to extend WFP's impact in the project.
As more beneficiaries gradually left the Bhutanese refugee camps in eastern Nepal on third-country resettlement,
WFP and UNHCR with government partners started the needs-based assistance scheme in 2016, in an effort to
work toward a more sustainable food response, ensuring that the use of limited project resources were maximized.
To this end, a strategy based on a ration reduction for all non-vulnerable households was developed. This was
complemented with a communication campaign to ensure refugees were able to adequately prepare for the
changes. A strong surveillance system helped to identify emerging problems related to reduced rations.
Non-vulnerable households who wanted their status reviewed, used an appeal mechanism to reach the
Government, WFP and UNHCR with their concerns.
Achievements at Country Level
Through an ongoing partnership with the Government for more than 50 years, WFP helped vulnerable communities
to increase their food security through diverse interventions. Through WFP's country programme (CP), short-term
employment provided over the years in food-assistance-for-assets (FFA) projects, has helped vulnerable
households to meet their immediate food needs and gain additional income through food rations and cash transfers.
As a result, the percentage of separate households headed by men and women having an acceptable food
consumption score (FCS) has surpassed the target of 80 percent in 2016. The extra cash received for participating
in asset creation projects has likely increased household purchasing power, ensuring better access to food.
However, as a result of numerous natural disasters such as droughts and floods regularly affecting the country,
most communities continue to need support to build their resilience.
Through a long standing partnership with the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA) McGovern-Dole Food
for Education Programme and the Ministry of Education, WFP has been providing mid-day meals in over 2,500
public schools across the country. Mid-day meals serve as a strong incentive for children to attend school as shown
by the high attendance rates (nearly 75 percent) for boys and girls in 2016, although the attendance rates have yet
to reach WFP's target of 90 percent. WFP added complementary activities, such as early-grade literacy support,
distribution of laptops and digital materials, constructing school infrastructure such as kitchens and school water and
sanitation facilities to the school meal programme from 2013, creating an overall package of education support
activities enhanced by community and government capacity development through trainings in logistics, food
handling, and hygienic food preparation, promotion of good practices in hygiene and sanitation in schools.
Despite these contributions, a negative rate of change in the school enrolment numbers for both boys and girls in
public schools has persisted for the past two years. A government study (FLASH I Report, 2071/2072) explaining
the reasons for this trend, stated that it was likely caused by more children being enrolled in private schools which
are perceived by parents as offering better quality education and services than public s