Food for Education

The key objective of the McGovern-Dole Program is to reduce hunger and improve literacy and primary education, especially for girls. By providing school meals, teacher training and related support, McGovern-Dole projects help boost school enrollment

The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program provides agricultural commodities and financial and technical assistance to carry out preschool and school food for education programs in eligible countries to improve food security, reduce the incidence of hunger, and improve literacy and primary education, particularly with respect to girls; and maternal, infant, and child nutrition programs for pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants, and children who are 5 years of age or younger.

Private voluntary organizations, cooperatives, intergovernmental organizations, governments of developing countries and their agencies, and other organizations.

The McGovern-Dole Program focuses on developing countries in which the national government of the recipient country is fully committed to achieving the goals of the World Declaration on Education for All and is taking steps to improve the quality and availability of education.

Agricultural commodities provided under the McGovern-Dole program shall be used for the awarded school nutrition programs. Financial assistance may be used for all allocable, reasonable, and allowable expenses are permitted, as defined at 7 CFR part 1599 and 2 CFR 200 Subpart E. Certain cost items, especially as defined at 7 CFR 1599.6, may have specific minimum, maximum, and tracking requirements.

Agreements normally include program implementation periods of 3-5 years; extensions may be available under certain circumstances.

Applicants will be evaluated based on the extent and quality to which they demonstrate that they have the capabilities, staff, and resources to successfully perform the project, as well as the quality of their demonstration. FAS will use these criteria to evaluate the content provided by Applicants' submissions and award points using the point system specified in the Notice of Funding Opportunity. FAS may invite comments from other USG agencies on its award recommendations, but FAS will make the final determination on which applications to accept.

FAS will assemble a panel committee consisting of technical reviewers and scorers to review applications for each individual Funding Opportunity or Track. This panel may include both Federal and non-Federal persons. The panel committee will review the programmatic merits of the applications based on the evaluation criteria identified in the Notice of Funding Opportunity. Following panel committee review, technical reviewer and scorers who participated on the panel committee will provide summary comments, scorers and funding recommendations on the application. The FAS Administrator will make the final selection of applications to approve for funding. The FAS Administrator will give serious consideration to recommendations from IFAD and the panel committees, but may also consider the following factors in making the award selections: Agency priorities, such as achieving greater geographical dispersion, program balance, or diversity; and the agency's alignment within USG's whole of government approach to agricultural development and innovation, as determined by USDA.