A photo collage of Kenyan nutritionist and Food4Education founder Wawira Njiru and the Giga Kitchen Cooks at Work/ HANDOUTFood4Education founder Wawira Njiru has been named the recipient of the German Africa Prize 2026 for her work linking school feeding with local food production, employment and economic development.
The German Africa Foundation said Njiru was being recognised for what it described as a model that treats school feeding as economic infrastructure rather than only a way of providing meals to children.
Njiru founded Food4Education (F4E) in 2012, initially providing meals to 25 schoolchildren.
The organisation now serves more than 660,000 children in over 1,900 schools across Kenya and has delivered more than 200 million meals, according to the foundation.
F4E's model combines family contributions, government funding and philanthropy to finance school meals, while its Tap2Eat digital platform allows families to contribute through wearable NFC wristbands or cards.
The organisation says the system also supports planning for food procurement, production and distribution through its network of kitchens, including the solar- and steam-powered Giga Kitchen in Nairobi.
About 80 per cent of the food served by F4E is sourced from local smallholder farmers, according to the organisation, providing a regular market for their produce.
Its operations employ more than 6,000 people, the organisation says, with women and young people making up the majority of its workforce. Jobs include kitchen management, food safety, logistics, supply-chain operations and software development.
Claus Stäcker, president of the German Africa Prize jury and Director of Programmes for Africa at Deutsche Welle, said Njiru's work had demonstrated how school feeding could strengthen local economic activity.
“Wawira Njiru demonstrates that school feeding can be much more than simply providing meals,” Stäcker said.
According to Njiru, school feeding was treated as charity.
"We have proven it is economic infrastructure. What we have built in Kenya shows what is possible when African solutions are designed around our own realities and built to work at scale. African governments are no longer asking us how many children we can feed," she said.
"They are asking how many jobs we can create, how many farmers we can connect to markets, and how much of their own budget is reinvested in local communities. That is the shift this prize recognises: Africa is building a school feeding economy, and F4E is accelerating it."
The organisation is also expanding its work beyond Kenya. After more than a decade of operations in the country, F4E says it is sharing its technology and operational experience with African governments, including supporting Zambia to strengthen a nationally led school-feeding system.
F4E is targeting one million children receiving daily meals by 2027.
The German Africa Prize has been awarded by the German Africa Foundation since 1993 and recognises individuals from African countries for contributions in areas including sustainable development, research and innovation, democracy and human rights.
Njiru will receive the 2026 award at a ceremony in Berlin on November 4.
Germany's Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Reem Alabali Radovan, is scheduled to present the prize.
