20. Number of complementary school health and nutrition interventions implemented alongside school feeding delivered by WFP | |
VERSION | V4.0 - 2026.03 — Existing |
INDICATOR CODE | 20 |
TECHNICAL OWNER | SBP |
INDICATOR TYPE | Country Level Outcome Indicator |
INDICATOR CLASSIFICATION | Complementary |
INDICATOR SCOPE | Programme specific |
APPLICABILITY | The selection of this indicator is recommended against the following sub-activities in CSPs logframes. Selection of the below sub-activities will NOT trigger the mandatory selection of this indicator: |
UNIT OF MEASUREMENT & ANALYSIS | Number of interventions |
DEFINITION | This indicator aims to measure the number of complementary interventions implemented alongside school feeding delivered by WFP. School Feeding is defined as the provision of food to children or their households through school-based programmes. Such programmes can provide meals, snacks, or conditional household transfers in the form of cash, vouchers or in kind, take-home rations. School Health and Nutrition is defined as health and nutrition programming designed for school-aged children and outreach activities that expand the effect of programmes within communities and to children not in schools. The services provided through school health and nutrition go beyond feeding, and may include complementary interventions such as deworming, vaccination, vision screening, nutrition education and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). Complementary interventions. School health and nutrition programmes typically include Complimentary interventions are not necessarily linked to the daily delivery of the meal/assistance to children but linked to additional services that improve education, health, and nutrition for children. For example, while the vaccinations are one off intervention done once a year, they are still counted as a complimentary intervention as they aim at supporting children’s health. Interventions can be counted if they are provided by WFP or by other agencies/Government alongside a school feeding programme supported by WFP. WFP works jointly with other UN agencies at the school level to deliver comprehensive school, health and nutrition packages to support children. The intervention is counted as long as it is provided in a school receiving any form of school-based assistance. Different types of WFP food assistance provided to same household (eg., in-kind, Cash, school meals to same household) are not counted as complimentary interventions. If SBCC is provided at the school level, then it is counted as a complimentary intervention. List of complimentary interventions:
|
RATIONALE | The School Feeding Strategy 2020-2030 sets out to provide an effective global response through the lens of the provision of an integrated and multisectoral approach to school health and nutrition. It identifies that an integrated package of support to schoolchildren and adolescents is needed, at scale. It is important that growing children are fully supported by good health and nutrition through investment in their first 8,000 days of life. If the early gains are to be sustained, and children are to achieve their full potential as adults, then they need to maintain good health and nutrition throughout the vulnerable periods of development that continue through to the early twenties: the first 8,000 days of life. Most importantly, good health and nutrition need to be sustained when children are being educated during school age and adolescence. This is an investment that is necessary for all children and has its greatest returns for the most deprived children and for girls. To achieve the above, WFP will work with governments and partners to jointly ensure that all primary schoolchildren have access to good quality meals in school, accompanied by a broader integrated package of health and nutrition services. WFP will take a context specific approach and adapt its roles to the particular country situation, in partnerships with other important players, including governments, United Nations agencies, the private sector, international financial institutions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) School health and nutrition programmes typically include an integrated package of health and nutrition interventions that together seek to meet the needs of the learner in the local context. School feeding may be one of these components, and others may include complementary activities such as, handwashing with soap, height measurement, weight measurement, deworming treatment, eye testing and eyeglasses, hearing testing and treatment, dental cleaning and testing, menstrual hygiene, drinking water, and water purification. These complementary interventions could be provided and funded by WFP but could also be provided and funded by other partners on the field – UN agencies, NGOs, local government. Given that the overall aim is related to the school learner’s achievement of their full potential, school feeding and the complementary interventions are viewed as a holistic approach contributing towards that goal, regardless of the agents involved. A country which is implementing over 4 complementary interventions alongside school feeding is considered to have made an investment in the comprehensiveness of the school health and nutrition package and therefore, considered to have progressed within this outcome. |
DATA COLLECTION TOOL | Data is collected annually at the end of the school year from schools that were part of a WFP School Feeding Programme. For each school, WFP should identify the number of complementary interventions and preferably the types of interventions per school. WFP should collect the data for all schools through its cooperating partners, implementing partners and government counterparts. A database/excel file is to be set-up to contain the information collected for all schools on annual basis. CO is required to report on COMET only the number of interventions and not the type. An intervention should be counted even if it targets only some of the school children and not all. Complimentary interventions to be counted are both the ones funded by WFP and the ones funded by other agencies and organizations as long as WFP is providing assistance to school-aged children in that school (technical assistance and/or direct assistance). The aim of the indicator is to measure what services are holistically available for school aged children. Questions that need to be collected are the following:
|
SAMPLING REQUIREMENTS | This indicator does not require sample selection. It should be collected from all schools benefiting from WFP assistance. |
INDICATOR CALCULATION FOR REPORTING | The CO is expected to report the minimum, maximum and the mean (average) for each CO. Minimum: No calculation needed. This is identified as the lowest number of interventions provided from the dataset established for all schools. The minimum is the data value that is less than or equal to all other values in our set of data. If we were to order all of our data in ascending order, then the minimum would be the first number in our list. Although the minimum value could be repeated in our data set, by definition this is a unique number. There cannot be two minima because one of these values must be less than the other. Maximum: No calculation needed. This is identified as the highest number of interventions provided from the dataset established for all schools. The maximum is the data value that is greater than or equal to all other values in our set of data. If we were to order all of our data in ascending order, then the maximum would be the last number listed. The maximum is a unique number for a given set of data. This number can be repeated, but there is only one maximum for a data set. There cannot be two maxima because one of these values would be greater than the other. Mean: This value is to be computed. The mean for a given set of observations is equal to the sum of all the values of a collection of data divided by the total number of values in the data. In other words, we can simply add all the values in a data set and divide it by the total number of values to calculate mean. Formula of mean x̄=Σfx/Σf where: x̄= the mean value of the set of given data. f = frequency of each class x = mid-interval value of each class Hence, the average of all the data points is termed as mean. Please refer to the example below for indicator calculation example. |
DATA ENTRY AND DISAGGREGATION IN CORPORATE SYSTEMS | Three figures are mandatory to be reported in COMET. The minimum, the maximum and the average number of complementary school health and nutrition interventions provided.
|
BASELINE | Baselines are established only once for the entire CSP. Baselines must be set using data collected within three months before or after the start of the activity. If no baseline is established within this three month window, the first collected value will serve as the baseline. If a new CSP begins and the activity continues from the previous CSP, the last reported value from the previous CSP becomes the baseline for the new cycle. |
TARGET SETTING | Annual targets: Annual targets to be set based on CO expected progress for the programme. End of CSP target: A country which is implementing over 4 complementary interventions alongside school feeding is considered to have made an investment in the comprehensiveness of the school health and nutrition package and to be progressed. As such, end of CSP targets is recommended to be set as 4 or more than 4. It is left up to the CO discretion to set the most reasonable target based on context. |
FREQUENCY OF DATA COLLECTION | Annually at the end of the school year. |
INTERPRETATION | This indicator is to be interpreted and reported vis-à-vis the country office progress and implementation of the school feeding activity and the complementary interventions provided (by WFP and other partners). The minimum and maximum are included in the reporting to provide a sense of the progress as the mean could average out the COs contribution towards an improvement in complementary interventions. The average is not expected to increase drastically on annual basis but the details of the maximum and minimum number of interventions could be used to tell the story of progress. |
REPORTING EXAMPLE(S) | The country of Oceania has a School Feeding Programme that is partially implemented by WFP. The School Feeding Programme of WFP is supporting the national School Feeding Programme through targeting schools in district 1, 2 and 3. The national government is able to target the rest of the districts with school feeding. In-line with WFP’s strategy to provide complementary school health and nutrition activities to school-aged children, WFP partners with UNICEF in District 1 and WHO in district 3 which provide the complimentary interventions. In District 2, WFP cooperating partners on the field have budgeted to implement the interventions. Below are the details:
Mean number of interventions = complimentary interventions/total number of schools Mean number of interventions= 13/10 =1.3 Given that we cannot have decimal interventions, the mean number of interventions is 1. On COMET: What is the minimum (lowest) number of complimentary interventions provided to at least one school in your country office? ANSWER: 0 What is the maximum(highest) complimentary interventions provided to at least one school in your country office? ANSWER: 3 What is the mean(average) number of complimentary interventions provided to at least one school in your country office? ANSWER: 1 Things to note about indicator calculation and reporting:
|
INDICATORS COLLECTED & ANALYSED AT THE SAME TIME | N/A |
COMPLEMENTARY QUALITATIVE RESEARCH | This indicator can be complemented by many types of qualitative research to provide more insights into programme implementation and results achieved. Below are two examples of topics that can be explored but other avenues are also possible based on CO interest and implementation:
|
DECISIONS DATA CAN INFORM | Data can inform need for upscaling of complementary interventions, resource allocation, partnership building, monitoring of strategic progress, and policy dialogue to strengthen multisectoral approaches and maximise human capital outcomes. |
VISUALIZATION | N/A |
LIMITATIONS | This indicator will take the mean number of interventions provided in a country and as such this is a crude measurement of what can be quite a complex picture, however, it does provide a way to track any changes in the number of complementary interventions being provided alongside school feeding in a given country. In a specific country, all schools may not necessarily be receiving the same type and number of interventions and as such this indicator will report on the mean/average number of complimentary interventions regardless of the number of schools receiving these interventions. This indicator alone will not reflect an accurate representation on the scope of work done, it is thus recommended that in the text of the ACR, the CO expands on the progress made. |
FURTHER INFORMATION | Consult CHQ SBP team. |
20. Number of complementary school health and nutrition interventions implemented alongside school feeding delivered by WFP
- Published on Apr 13, 2026
- 11 minute(s) read
