With the halt of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)-supported school meals programme for children in Latin America and the Carib-bean, the UN organisation wants regional governments to implement measures to support schoolchildren whose families “have greater difficulties in accessing food,” and ensure that children’s access to nutritious food is maintained, in the current conditions of emergency associated with the global coronavirus pandemic.
With schools across both Latin America and the Caribbean closed in res-ponse to the widespread social distancing refrain to help check the spread of the virus, the FAO says that in order to “scale up nutritional support and to enhance the management and prevention of undernourishment,” meal regimes in schools in the region should be adjusted “so as to continue delivering school meals even when schools are shut.”
