School Feeding: Bangladesh inks deal with WFP

Bangladesh has signed an agreement with the World Food Programme (WFP) for expanding and improving school feeding programme for the country's primary school students.

The agreement was inked at an event attended by Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen.

Bangladesh government introduced a school feeding programme in 2010 and now some 23 lakh students of 15,000 primary schools in 104 upazilas are getting free meals.

Under the new agreement, the programme will be expanded to more than 150 upazilas, raising the number of beneficiaries to 37 lakh students.

Thanks to the programme, the dropout rate has declined by 7.5 percent and the enrolment rate increased by 14 percent in the primary schools, said Momen.

Moreover, Bangladesh has become the 85th member of the School Meals Coalition at an event on Monday.