About the conference 

The Global Child Nutrition Forum is a four-day learning exchange and technical assistance conference held biannually to support countries in the development and implementation of sustainable school feeding programs.

Since 1997, the Forum has brought together governments from across the world and their partners for intensive training, technical assistance and planning, all directed toward establishing and strengthening country-operated school feeding programs.  The Global Child Nutrition Forum aims to leverage the outcomes of the School Meals Coalition biannual ministerial meeting held in Paris, France in October 2023, by offering technical capacity building and learning exchange to help governments achieve their commitments and strengthen their programs. 

The 2024 Forum theme is ‘School Meal Programs in an Era of Food Systems Transformation’.  Technical sessions will focus on local and regional procurement; domestic financing; program sustainability and more.  The Forum will also launch the latest results of the Global Survey of School Meal Programs. The objectives of the session are to: 

• Serve as a key platform for governments and their partners to learn, exchange experiences, and gain inspiration for building, maintaining, and expanding high quality school meal programs.
• Highlight results of the Global Survey of School Meal Programs and other research, trends, and innovations relevant to school meal programs.
• Showcase Japan’s local, national, and international experiences with school meal programs and serve as an official pre-event to the 2025 Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD).  
• Collectively develop key messages reflecting participant priorities to guide advocacy efforts over the coming year.
• Support the objectives of the School Meals Coalition (SMC) and Nutrition for Growth (N4G).

The forum is offered in cooperation with the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; and International Child Nutrition Japan. 

4 days of peer-to-peer exchange and technical workshops bringing together school meal program leaders from around the world.

Interested in attending?
Join the Waitlist!

Please send an email to info@gcnf.org with subject line "Registration Waitlist Request".

In the body of the email, please include the following information:

• Your name
• Work title
• Organization
• Country of work
• Any Government affiliation
• The entity sponsoring the costs associated with your attendance

Call for Forum Research Poster Entries!

If you’ve conducted research or written any reports/papers on topics related to school meal programs within the last four years, we are interested in working with you to display the headline conclusion of your research/paper at the Forum.

Quite different from traditional research posters, GCNF’s headline posters are intended to announce the results or conclusions of your work in 25 words or less (in headline form). Posters should provide only the core details of the research, including:

• Title of the work
• Introduction
• Author(s)
• Citation
• URL link to access the full report/paper (either QR code or hyperlink)

GCNF is accepting poster submissions for consideration from now until 8 November. Accepted posters are planned to be displayed during the Forum and on GCNF’s website post-Forum. For additional information and to submit a poster for consideration, please contact arlene@gcnf.org.

Additional Resources

Download Headline Poster Guidelines and Template