Mrs. Gertrude Quashigah, the Acting National Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), has said that plans are far advanced to provide cocoa drink to all the beneficiary pupils under the GSFP programme.

She said, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo would launch the introduction of cocoa drink in August this year.

According to her, the cocoa drink will be given as breakfast to the children before their daily nutritious meal is served to them.

She was speaking at the ongoing regional capacity building training workshop organized by the GSFP for all caterers, cooks and district nutrition officers at Wa, in the Upper West Region.

The training, dubbed: “Innovative Nutrition Initiative”, is on the theme: “Improving School Meals through Capacity Building” and will equip participants with knowledge on the required quality standards of preparing nutritious meals for the pupils.

She said the cocoa drink would help improve the health of the children.

She said there were several other innovations her outfit was introducing to improve on the programme, especially the quality of meals served to the kids, the welfare of the caterers and how to expand and sustain the programme to benefit more Ghanaian children.

The Acting National Coordinator said the main goal of the training workshop was also to train the participants on the use of the meal planner software to generate district based menus, and secondly, to deepen the involvement and participation of the Regional Coordinating Councils, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in managing an efficient and effective homegrown school feeding programme.

The training programme is being funded by the World Food Programme with technical support from the Partnership for Child Development.

The Ghana School Feeding Programme was set up to increase school enrolment, attendance, and retention; reduce short term hunger and malnutrition; and boost domestic food production.