“Caring for the younger generation of friendly Tajikistan is one of our priorities. Russia has already allocated more than $82 million for the School Feeding Programme in the Republic in the spirit of alliance and strategic partnership that have been linking our countries for 30 years,” emphasized Shamil Shamsutdinov.
“This contribution is very timely for Tajik schoolchildren. Through close collaboration with the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan and ongoing support from the Russian Federation, WFP's School Feeding Programme helps ensure healthy nutrition for children, which contributes to their healthy growth and development,” said Adham Musallam. “WFP also provides technical assistance to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Tajikistan, and supports its efforts to manage and coordinate the Programme throughout the country.”
The School Feeding Programme is the largest WFP project in Tajikistan, funded by the Russian Federation since 2013. The project provides hot lunches for primary school students in 2000 schools in 52 districts and cities of the republic. In 2021, schools received almost 7,000 tons of food, feeding 440,000 students.
At the same time, the project does not just supply food, but helps to improve the conditions for preparing meals in order to make them of the highest quality and safest. To date, 50 school canteens have been repaired and equipped with modern equipment, on the basis of which nine greenhouse farms, five interschool bakeries and one food processing plant operate. In addition, seven private bakeries have been equipped, supplying schools with freshly baked bread.
Since 2013, the Russian Federation has allocated $82.1 million to the School Feeding Programme in Tajikistan, including $54 million for food aid and $28.1 million for infrastructure upgrades.