A/HRC/13/32 schools.60 It also provides the School Breakfast Program61 and the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program.62 Some Governments, including those of Italy, France and South Africa have made efforts to ensure that their schools offer organic food to their students.63 68. School meal programmes in developing countries provide healthy food and improve access to education for children, improve rural economies and help local farmers.64 In 2009, the Partnership for Child Development at Imperial College London launched a project aimed at helping Governments “to run school meal programmes using locally-sourced food, providing regular orders and a reliable income for local farmers” in Mali, Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi and Kenya.65 E. Microfinance for poor women 69. The African Women Food Farmer Initiative of the Hunger Project was the first microfinance programme in Africa developed to target women food producers, and the first to result in officially recognized rural banks owned and operated by rural women. Since its inception in 1999, the Hunger Project has disbursed loans to about 75,000 partners in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal and Uganda. A total of 18 Rural Banks now operate as independent, community-owned and women-led rural financial institutions. The Project has disbursed nearly $7.9 million to various communities, 42 per cent of which has been distributed by the Rural Banks.66 70. The Kenya Women Finance Trust Ltd. (www.kwft.org), established in 1981 as the largest and only microfinance institution exclusively for women, ensures that women entrepreneurs have access to credit and promotes savings mobilization among its 100,000 members from seven of Kenya’s eight provinces. By December 2008, it was responsible for 247,538 active loans. Al Tadamun Microfinance Foundation in Egypt provides group guaranteed microfinance exclusively for women. By December 2009, it had 91,000 active borrowers and a portfolio of LE60 million or US$ 10.9 million. 71. Kiva (www.kiva.org) is a person-to-person microlending website that links individual lenders to rural entrepreneurs around the world, especially in Africa. Lenders browse through profiles of entrepreneurs and women farmers that are uploaded to the Kiva website, and lend them funds using their credit cards. Kiva then provides the funds to the beneficiaries. 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 20 USDA, The National School Lunch Program, 2009 (www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/); and Factsheet: The National School Lunch Program, 2009 (www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/AboutLunch/NSLPFactsheet.pdf). USDA, The School Breakfast Program, October 2009, http://www.fns.usda.gov/CND/Breakfast/. The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program was reported to have “had positive impacts on students’ attitudes, preferences, and eating behaviours”. USDA, Interim Report on the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program: Fiscal Year 2007, 2008 (www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/ffvp/FFVP_07Report.pdf). J. Meldrum, “Organic Canteen Food for Better Kids”, Australian Organic Journal, 2006 (www.bfa.com.au/_files/x06aoj_008-9.pdf). Along similar lines is M. Bedjaoui’s proposal regarding “‘le bol de céréales’ patrimoine commun de l’humanité”. See M. Bedjaoui, L’humanité en quête de paix et de développement, Recueil des Cours (II), Vol. 325, The Hague, 2006, pp. 198-201. Imperial College London, Local Farmers in Africa to Benefit from School Meal Programmes, 2009 (www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_15-10-2009-12-204). The Hunger Project, Microfinance Program in Africa, 2009 (www.thp.org/what_we_do/key_initiatives/microfinance/overview).