Final: In September of 2002, Mercy USA for Aid and Development (MUSA) received USDA commodities worth over $2 million to carry out a daily school lunch program. Every school day, the feeding program delivered meals to 30,627 children attending 67 primary schools in eleven districts in the economically depressed northern and central regions of Albania.

To assist in the implementation of the MUSA GFE program in Albania, 320 new jobs for traders, dairy producers, bakers, truckers and restaurant operators, were created. The continuance of these jobs is dependent upon the sustainability of the school meal program. In addition, MUSA has integrated the skills of local disabled persons in the community, offering them the opportunity to contribute their abilities in a productive and positive manner in two of the eleven Albanian districts. Albania’s Disabled People Association is one of MUSA’s implementing partners, responsible for the delivery and distribution of meals to schools, as well as contributing to the monitoring of their corresponding food preparation centers.

Meal distribution finished with the completion of the school year, on June 13, 2003.

Midterm: Mercy USA for Aid and Development (MUSA) has Commodity Management not begun direct feeding because the commodities have not arrived. Feeding is anticipated to begin in September 2002. MUSA has begun preparation, including assessment and enrollment of participating schools, contracting, hiring staff, and developing the feeding mechanisms and logistics for the food delivery. The Global Food for Education Program (GFE) monitor will begin to collect baseline data, including other donor support information, once the school selection has been finalized and the sample schools chosen. The program is scheduled to begin in September 2002 and end in March 2003.

MUSA decided to focus its GFE in the northern and central regions of the country because that is the area of greatest poverty and unemployment, including some of the poorest prefectures in the country, such as Kukes, Diber, Lezhe, and Elbasan.

Final: Mercy USA received approximately 5,000 metric tons of wheat flour, 850 metric tons of rice and 150 metric tons of corn oil, with some minor losses during shipping due to torn bags, container damage, etc. The flour arrived in three separate shipments in May, June and July of 2002, and the rice and oil arrived in July as well. The shipments were offloaded at the Greek seaport of Piraeus and from there were transported via land to the port of Durres, on the Adriatic Coast. There were some customs issues, but Mercy USA considered them routine, and took care of them on a day-by-day basis.

Mercy USA leased a very new and clean warehousing facility in Durres, which employs 24-hour security on site. The large warehouses accommodated the high stacking and other considerations required by USDA for the storage of commodities used in GFE. In cooperation with local partners, Mercy USA has also arranged for the use of the warehouses of bakers, traders, restaurants and suppliers that are participating in the provisions of services and/or the bartering of the commodities. Although the roads in Albania are in a state of deterioration, the delivery of commodities and meals at site was usually on-time and without incident, due to proper planning and good cooperation between all participants.

Midterm: The requested commodities were: wheat flour, 5,000 metric tons; rice, 850 tons; and corn oil, 150 tons.

MUSA originally requested 6,000 tons to be delivered in January and February 2002. As of May 14, 2002, MUSA had not received commodities or funds, although the commodities were expected to begin arriving in mid-May. However, with school ending in mid-June, actual feeding will not begin until the start of the new school year in September 2002, continuing until June 2003. When the feeding begins, a portion of the commodities will be bartered for local foods, such as cheese, to enhance the nutrition. MUSA expects that its feeding program will reach a combined enrollment of 30,000 children in five regions (Lezha, Shkodra, Tirana, Elbasan, and Berat) in the 12 targeted districts of Kukes, Lezhe, Kurbin, Rreshen, Puke, Malesia Madhe, Vau Dejes, Tirana, Berat, Gramsh, Librazhd, and Elbasan.

Final: According to MUSA records, the goals as described in the Midterm section of this report were achieved. The project has shown significant progress in terms of its planned targets. All student achievement indicators increased at end of the first semester in the 2002-2003 school year when compared to the same period in the 2001-2002 school year. Total student enrollment increased 4.7% (from 29,254 in 2001-02 to 30,627 in 2002-03). Among girls, enrollment increased 5.7% (from 14,304 in 2001-02 to 15,120 in 2002-03). Total student attendance increased 1.47% (from 98.27% in 2001-02 to 99.74% in 2002-03) and 1.44% specifically among girls (from 98.34% in 2001-02 to 99.78% in 2002-03).

Moreover, total average number of students who successfully passed, based on first semester results, increased by 12% (from 85.06% who passed in 2001-02 to 97.10% in 2002-03) and 8.3% among girls (from 89.09% in semester I 2001-02 to 97.43% in 2002-03). Total student average marks increased 5.6% (from 7.1 out of 10 in the first semester of 2001-02 to 7.5 in 2002-03) and specifically 8.2% among girls (from 7.3 out of 10 to 7.9).

Midterm: Goals and objectives: To meet the overall goals for the GFE project of increasing enrollment, attendance, and performance, especially for girls, MUSA proposed to feed 30,000 students in the 12 districts and meet the following targets:

Final: The selection of schools to participate in the program was based upon the following criteria:

MUSA began direct feeding on September 17th, 2002. As of March 31, 2003 Mercy USA had used 394 metric tons of wheat flour, 78 metric tons of rice and 82 metric tons of oil for direct feeding, and bartered approximately 2,815 metric tons of wheat flour. Some of the bartered wheat flour went in exchange for bakery services for bread making and preparation of sandwiches. The wheat flour was also bartered in exchange for fresh commodities such as white feta cheese, processed spread cheese for babies, soft yogurt, eggs, potatoes, apples, onions and fig or plum jam.

MUSA also hired a nutritionist to ensure that the meals offered beneficiaries the best possible nutritional value with the highest calories (the meals average 532 calories each), as well as a public health specialist/inspector and food commodity expert to ensure food safety in all stages of delivery to the beneficiaries.

Midterm: MUSA has not begun direct feeding because the commodities have not arrived. It has begun preparation, including assessment and enrollment of participating schools, contracting, hiring staff, making arrangements for bartering, and developing the feeding mechanisms and logistics for the food delivery.

Final: Communities and local authorities were highly involved in the implementation of GFE in the schools. Together MUSA and these organizations have established eleven school kitchens since November of 2002. These community and local authority organizations also provided plastic bags to wrap the individual sandwiches, as well as plastic plates, spoons and paper towels.

Midterm: The GFE monitor will begin to collect baseline data, which will include other donor support information, once the school selection has been finalized and the sample schools chosen.

Final: MUSA has been working with community committees that are composed of parent teacher associations, local partner organizations and MUSA’s monitors in all 67

schools, holding general orientation sessions. MUSA intends to develop this network of organizations to the extent that it will be capable of assuming the administration of school feeding once MUSA completes its participation in GFE.

Midterm: This is a serious issue to be analyzed as the project becomes fully implemented. In its focus on improving education, the Government of Albania proposes to increase attendance through eighth grade using a variety of strategies including scholarships, textbooks, and food.

Final: See evaluation methodology in Appendix 1.

The health and safety of its beneficiaries are MUSA’s highest priorities, as demonstrated by their reaction to on October 8, 2002. On this day, a number of students at 10 Korriku School in Elbasan District complained of stomachache. MUSA was concerned about any possible relationship between the children’s illnesses and the GFE school feeding program, and thus immediately suspended the feeding until independent investigators could conduct medical examinations on the affected children and laboratory tests on the food. The program suspension lasted from October 10–27. In the end, all laboratory reports concluded that there were no links between the symptoms displayed by the children and the food provided for the school feeding. More importantly, MUSA acted quickly and appropriately and in the best interests of the beneficiaries, and made a statement to parents and communities that their chief concern was the safeguard the health and safety of their children. In addition to the independent tests, MUSA carried out a comprehensive internal review of their food monitoring system and the food-supply chain that included warehousing, transportation, handling, preparation and final delivery to schools and students, ensuring that the food system in place continues to be safe for all participating students.

Midterm: Both the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and MUSA will be carrying out monitoring and evaluation activities during the project. USDA has hired a local monitor to collect baseline data on the sample schools and conduct the local monitoring for USDA. MUSA staff and the USDA monitor will coordinate their monitoring and evaluation efforts to avoid redundancies while ensuring independence of action. As a group, the personnel will discuss the factors that could impact a GFE project's success and reach consensus on the factors used to develop a sample matrix. These identified factors would contribute significantly to success or failure of any educational effort. They would also impact the administration and supervision of the project by MUSA.

A matrix will be developed for all MUSA schools. Twenty sample schools will be chosen at random from each cell of the matrix. The USDA monitor will use a questionnaire to obtain preliminary baseline data before initiating focus groups of parents for qualitative data collection.

Enrollment: Albania places a high emphasis on education as a social and cultural priority, and enrollment percentages were traditionally high before the implementation of GFE, and they have remained so since. Nevertheless, MUSA monitors found that total enrollment for the 2002-2003 school year increased by 4.7% over the previous year. Further information on the positive impact of the program was reflected in anecdotal stories heard from students, teachers, program administrators, etc., as described elsewhere in this report.

Attendance: Again, attendance is traditionally at a high level, and the impact of the feeding program is not as conspicuous. Families believe that children should go to school. However, MUSA monitors did find that total student attendance increased by 1.47% over the 2002-2003 school year. The monitors also reported anecdotal data showing a noticeable decrease in complaints of stomachaches and headaches during school since the implementation of GFE.

Performance: Teachers have also reported improvements in attention, behavior and overall discipline since the introduction of the meal program.

Special emphasis on girls: There is no disparity between girls and boys attendance in school in Albania. The high social and cultural priority placed on education in Albania encompasses both genders; therefore addressing a disparity in gender was not a programmatic issue in Albania.

Final: MUSA invited the Albanian Association for the Disabled and its members to assist in the implementation of GFE in two districts. Persons with disabilities, whose employment opportunities are limited, found full-time work under the GFE project. This strengthens their self-esteem and demonstrates to others that people with disabilities are productive and contributing members of society.

Some parents reported that at the beginning of the feeding, they were suspicious about the food quality and hygiene, and had instructed their children not to eat school meals. Schools and monitors reported leftover food at the end of the daily lunch period. Parents changed their minds when they came to know that MUSA works with fulltime local district health & hygiene monitors. MUSA also works closely with government health and hygiene authorities. The parents now encourage their children to eat the GFE meals.

One child in one of the northern districts said to a field officer, "I always liked cream cheese but my parents could not afford to get it for me; thanks to you I have realized my wish".

Due to MUSA’s high hygiene standards, the owners of two dairy plants participating in the GFE project reported that their participation has improved the overall hygiene standards at their plants.

Local health and hygiene inspectors said that MUSA is implementing and enforcing hygiene regulations that they could not implement themselves before.

Last modified: Monday, April 14, 2008 06:13:23 PM