Joseph Frantz Nicolas, the Director General of the National Fund for Education (FNE), signed this week a partnership agreement with Phanese Laguerre, the Coordinator of the National Program of School Canteens (PNCS), to provide a food for more 8,000 children enrolled in the Lower North-West and some communes in southern Haiti during the 2019-2020 school year.

The regions of the Lower North-West and South have been selected on the basis of the recent classification report on food insecurity produced by the National Council for Food Security (CNSA), the rate of coverage by school feeding programs existing and the availability of local products.

Overall in this agreement, the FNE will secure funding and contribute to monitoring and supervision of response activities and will also provide technical support to the PNCS as needed.

For its part, the PNCS will take care of the implementation of the program and its smooth running, will supervise the beneficiary schools and will ensure the training of the staff of the school feeding.

According to Nicolas, this program responds to an urgency found in rural schoolchildren who face serious difficulties, including threats related to food insecurity "By this agreement, we want to develop a model of collaboration that will serve as a guide in future relations of the FNE with the PNCS."

Phanèse Laguerre abounds in the same sense "It is not by chance that the FNE decides to support the PNCS, particularly in the North-West. Children are vulnerable, the challenges are indeed huge in this region."

IH/ iciHaiti