Project: Creating Jobs Through the School Feeding Value Chain
State of development: Current
Stage of development: Early stage
Stage notes: Early-Stage Design
Type of instrument — Impact Bond: Yes; Outcomes Fund: No; Social Impact Incentives (SIINC): No; Social Impact Guarantee: No; Payment-by-results (no pre-financing): Yes; Technical Assistance and Market-building program: No; Other: 
Rationale for using outcome-based finance: Our school feeding program is innovative and builds upon historical failures of school feeding in Africa. We have adopted a uniquely tech-centric approach to school feeding. Most school feeding programs in Africa operate on a very small scale, use firewood or charcoal for cooking fuel, and are largely inefficient due to lack of economies of scale and purely charitable models. We are changing the status quo by leveraging economies of scale in bulk buying, using central kitchens, and climate-friendly cooking technologies. Further, we are laser focused on cost and guarantee efficiency through operational dashboards and our Tap2Eat technology. Compared to SFPs run by schools themselves, our cost is ~30-50% cheaper. Our program is home-grown and we enlist parents to contribute to the program to ensure our program sustainability: we collected over $1million in parent revenue in the last financial year while we continue to strive to lower our costs.
Key challenges to launch: "Our program is a unique school feeding program solution, never seen before in Kenya and our goal is to invest in 1 million children through our program and create over 15,000 direct jobs.

We have secured capital to start up and run the intervention and have secured funding from philanthropic funders, corporate partners and government, but there is a gap of $55m over the next 3 years that we need to fill to reach our goal of serving 1 million children every day. This partnership will allow us to connect with outcomes financiers and OBF project managers during the design phase of this specific work. Outcomes-based funding is one avenue we believe can support filling this gap, and our active partnership with the Kenyan government means that we have an active government investor that is ready to participate in an outcomes-based funding project. "
Social/developmental challenge: "Over 8.9 million people in Kenya live in extreme poverty, and the economic climate has pushed an additional 1.4 million people into poverty. In Kenya, lack of livelihoods is inextricably linked with hunger - over half the population is food poor. This disproportionately affects children and stunts their future earning potential. Despite the robust growth witnessed in the economy in recent years, 13.4% of the labor workforce is unemployed, with 80% involved in informal work characterized by low wages, limited job security, and a lack of social benefits. 

A study by the World Food Programme and Harvard found that every $1 invested in school lunches provided a 9x return in improved social outcomes. An investment in a child's nutrition and wellbeing has a lasting impact on the economic future of any country. Solving how to feed children in Africa is solving this problem for the world."
Expected intervention model: "Food for Education is catalyzing a new industry in the food economy with a blueprint for school feeding, creating thousands of new dignified jobs in the Kenyan market. Since our inception, we have created nearly 2,000 dignified, paying jobs across the school feeding value chain for Kenyans living in poverty. These jobs pay 2.5x-5x more than people would otherwise earn in the informal sector. Weâre projected to create >2,500 more jobs in the next 2 years thanks to a partnership with the Nairobi County government that will pay for all 250,000+ children in public primary schools in the county to eat daily school meals. We stimulate ~$5MM dollars annually into smallholder farmers markets to source fresh, nutritious, local ingredients from smallholder farmers; we centralize production with a team of trained staff and simplify distribution logistics using a fleet of distribution trucks and motorcycles for rural parts of Kenya. 

With our partners in Nairobi County government, we will carry out early stage design for an outcomes-based financing project regarding our programâs effects on job creation and increasing dollars earned. This project will pioneer work on the more immediate positive economic and livelihoods effects of school feeding."
Policy sectors — Employment and private sector development: Yes; Education: Yes; Social protection: No; Criminal justice: No; Health: No; Agriculture: No; Environment and climate change: No; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: No; Energy: No; Humanitarian: No; Early Childhood Education: No; Other: 
Primary SDG goal: 2,4,8
Country income classification of beneficiaries — Low-income: No; Lower-middle-income: Yes; Upper-middle-income: No; High-income: No
Notes: Data for this pipeline project was last updated in May 2024
Delivery location: Kenya