The impact of School feeding programmes on educational outcomes: Evidence from Burkina Faso

Food for Education (FFE) programmes have been implemented in developing countries since the 1960s. This paper examines the impact of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) school feeding programme on pupils' attendance and girls' enrolment rate within primary schools in northern Burkina Faso. Using difference-in-difference (DID) estimation with the data set on the Beoog Biiga programme, we find that take-home rations (THRs) increased school attendance for both boys and girls. Moreover, the findings show that girls' enrolment rate within schools increased by 3.2 percentage points. This is driven by the increase in the number of newly enroled girls compared with boys. We conclude that THRs have the potential to increase girls' educational attainment and gender equality within schools. © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies, All rights reserved.