The Distortive Effects of Ghana’s School Feeding Programme on Primary Education Delivery: The Case of Adentan Municipality

When seen through the rate of enrolment, School feeding programs (SFPs) have been praised as having made significant contribution to the achievement of Universal Primary Education (UPE) - goal 2 of the United Nations Millen-nium Development Goals. However, the process of institutional building to sustain such programmes for effective and efficient delivery of education re-mains problematic in many cases. This study analyses school feeding in Ghana from the perspective of ‘multi-functionality’, a cross-sector approach (educa-tion, agriculture and health) that brings together different types of institutions and actors to provide the means to keep children in school and ensure their education. A close examination of the case of Adentan Municipality in the Greater Accra region shows how the multi-functional approach can produce distorted effects on some of the schools that have benefited from the well known Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP). These programmes involve the cooperation between governmental and non-governmental actors, using mar-ket and non market mechanisms. Significantly, the cooperative mechanisms of multi-functionality tend to weigh heavily on the direct service providers, that is, those who deliver meals and education to the beneficiaries. Despite their commitment, caterers face arrears in salary and teachers must deal with an in-creased number of school children using very limited infrastructure. Future research on the relationship between SFP and UPE in Ghana should focus on the necessary balance in the operative mechanisms that involve the coopera-tion between national institutions responsible for UPE and locally embedded institutions and actors.