In Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the world’s poorest regions, governments heavily rely upon
donor Aid in order to sustain their national budgets and address the exacerbation of poverty.
Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the region is no exception and part of the cause of the
poverty is donor aid suspension. The United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) in
Malawi introduced the School Feeding programme in 1999. The intention was to reduce
dropout rates, promote regular attendance, increase enrolment, and improve children’s ability
to concentrate and learn, and improve government capacity to implement a school meals
programme. During the period between 2007 and 2011, the WFP announced the temporary
suspension of the programme for half a million children in 10 of the 13 Malawian Districts of
which the Chirazdulu district was one. Since the suspension of the programme, no proper
study has been conducted to indicate the bearing of the suspension. The purpose of the study
was to explore in which ways suspension of Aid provision by the WFP from 2007 to 2011
affected the school meals programme and the socio-economic status of the beneficiaries of
the programme in the Chiradzulu district in Malawi. Participants in the study were three
teachers at two schools where the programme is offered and four parents from the two
schools who were involved in the administration of the programme. A qualitative research
approached was used and a case study design was applied at two schools in the Chiradzulu
district where the WFP’s school meals programme was implemented. Semi-structure
interview schedules that were pre-tested were used during the individual interviews
conducted with parents and teachers. The school meals programme is still implemented at the
two schools today.
The main findings revealed that donor aid suspension affected the continued implementation
of the school meals programme and the socio-economic wellbeing of the programme’s
beneficiaries. There was a reduction in school attendance by learners, increased absenteeism,
evidence of malnourishment amongst learners and increasing pressure on parents to provide
breakfast for the learners before they went to school. For the programme to have a sustainable
impact it is recommended that its implementation must not be interrupted by aid suspension,
the programme must be expanded but remain targeted and not become universal and the
Malawi government assume full responsibility of the programme and stop reliance on foreign
funding.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/14744 |
| Date | 11 June 2014 |
| Creators | Malikebu, Charles |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf |
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