Nicaragua | World Food Programme (2024)

The National School Feeding Programme is Nicaragua's largest social safety net. WFP complements the programme by providing daily nutritious meals to 180,000 children in 2,500 schools. WFP also buys fresh food for the meals from smallholder farmers in cooperatives, and improves school infrastructure to allow for the storage, preparation and consumption of school meals.

A comprehensive package includes information on technology for crop extraction and processing, along with training in preparation in gender inclusion, access to markets and practical measures such as the use of organic fertilizer.

WFP, in collaboration with SINAPRED (National Civil Defence) provides take-home food packages to schoolchildren in emergency-affected areas and take-home rations to their families. WFP also supports the Government in collecting data on food security in disaster-prone hotspots, and provides technical assistance to institutions in disaster risk reduction and management.

WFP works with national institutions, mainly SINAPRED and the Ministry of Education, to strengthen the knowledge and skills of public officials and enable them to design and implement programmes to help further efforts towards zero hunger, with a focus on gender, nutrition and risk prevention.

WFP uses its scope and expertise to offer other UN entities and institutions supply chain services. These include procurement, transport and other logistics, and technology and telecommunications including internet access, satellite phones and radios during emergencies.