Learning Case #3, Social Audits in Mali

SNV Mali is leveraging the tradition of restitutions publiques or public restitutions to increase community awareness and support for school feeding.

Public restitutions for school feeding give authorities and school management committees the opportunity to present annual reports on school canteen management and gather community observations, critiques, and commitments. The restitution serves as a forum for the elected school management committee members to explain their roles and responsibilities to the community. Likewise, participants learn about the established or potential roles for other actors involved in school feeding, including parents of students and farmer organisations.

The approach provides a forum for discussing how school feeding can support local economic development by linking canteens to cereal producers and smallholder farmers. By triggering a discussion of school canteen issues, the restitutions are intended to foster greater community support for, and oversight of, the school canteen. The case study 'Learning Case #3, Social Audits in Mali' illustrates the first public restitution conducted for the school feeding programme in Dogoni through the Procurement Governance for Home Grown School Feeding (PG-HGSF) project.