Yesterday, as part of the Government's efforts to strengthen the program of universal education free and compulsory (PSUGO) and allow children to stay in school, the Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, signed to the Primature, with Ms. Myrta Kaulard , Director of the World Food Programme of the United Nations in Haiti, a Memorandum of Understanding for the sustainability of the program of school feeding assistance.

This program aims to equip the country with a true system of school canteens decentralized with departmental structures to combat malnutrition in the age group of zero (0) to 12 years. This program focuses on the following objectives:

• Establish a national school feeding policy which defines the norms and standards for the implementation of canteens, under the aegis of the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training (MENFP) ;

• Consider the gradual increase in the number of beneficiaries in order to arrive to provide one meal per day to about 1.5 million students, based on the financial capacity of the Haitian State and WFP for resource mobilization;

• Maximize the use of resources that the parties will have to mobilize, allocate and manage in a coordinated and articulated manner and prepare the financial recovery of the program by the Haitian capacity ;

• Continue a growing local supply of school canteens from small Haitian farmers ;

• Make more competitive the Haitian small producers on the commercial markets ;

• Ensure adequate dietary intake of foods and compliance with the rules of hygiene in food preparation ;

• Finally, improve the the ambient conditions of schools with already, a canteen with a storage capacity of food, of availability of drinking water, health facilities.

HL/ HaitiLibre