Food for education (FFE) programs, which consist of meals served in school

and in some cases take-home rations and deworming programs conditional on

school attendance, are considered a powerful tool to improve educational outcomes,

particularly in areas where school participation is initially low. Compared

to other programs, such as conditional cash transfers and scholarships,

school meals may provide a stronger incentive to attend school because children

must be in school in order to receive the rations, and have the potential

to improve nutritional and general health status as well. In this paper, we nd

that the Cambodia FFE, that was implemented in six Cambodian regions between

1999 and 2003, increased enrollment, school attendance and completed

education. We also ask who bene ted the most, and how cost-eective such a

program is compared to other types of interventions.