The South African Early Childhood Review 2024 reinforces these findings. This is an annual review of child development produced by the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town and Ilifa Labantwana, an early childhood development NGO. It highlights a rise in child malnutrition, particularly severe acute malnutrition. Between 2020 and 2023, these cases increased by 33%, with 15,000 children requiring hospitalisation in 2022/23 alone.

Based on Julian May and Thokozani Simelane’s extensive research experience, policy advice and activism in food security, they argue that food insecurity transcends mere food supply issues. It is deeply intertwined with systemic inequality, food system dynamics, poverty and failures in policy.

Tackling these crises will need a profound change in the approach to food and nutrition security. It requires a shift from temporary relief measures such as the social relief of distress grant to sustainable, structural solutions that lower the cost of a healthy food basket. That would mean no child would have to search for sustenance in refuse bins.

Any solution so far?

South Africa has the highest number of people who rely on social grants. Some of these are aimed at addressing food insecurity and nutrition, particularly among children. Despite these safety nets, food insecurity persists, suggesting that they are either inadequately resourced or poorly targeted.

The grants include:

Social grants: About 58% of children aged 14 and younger receive social grants, primarily through the child support grant. However, the youngest children, especially infants, are most likely to be excluded from the grant due to delays in registering infants after birth.

Enrolling eligible infants from birth requires better coordination between government departments. However, due to the size of the grant relative to the cost of ensuring child nutrition, and competing demands on the grant from other household needs such as housing and clothing, the grants are not enough to alleviate food insecurity.

School and early childhood development feeding programmes: The National School Nutrition Programme reaches over 9 million children annually. Evidence suggests that children in these programmes have better nutritional outcomes than those who are not.
Community and NGO initiatives: While home, school and community gardens, community kitchens and NGO-driven food relief programmes provide support, they lack sustainability and reach.

What needs to be done?

The HSRC and South Africa Early Childhood Review 2024 highlight the urgent need for comprehensive, multi-sectoral solutions:

Increase the value of the child support grant, currently R530 a month, to align with the cost of a thrifty healthy basket of R945.
Ensure infants and young children are enrolled in the child support grant from birth through better collaboration between the departments of health, home affairs and social development. The recent reduction in the visa backlog shows what can be achieved.
Establish the national multi-sectoral food security coordination body proposed in the National Food and Nutrition Security Plan to streamline policies across different government departments. Brazil followed a similar approach with success.
Expand early childhood development nutrition programmes, register informal early childhood development centres, and increase subsidies to improve food provision in these centres.
Address gender inequalities in food security by ensuring better economic opportunities for women engaged in food trade, including street vending, who are more likely to be heads of household.
Expand community-based health services, using community health workers to monitor child growth and nutrition at the household level.
Address neglected dimensions of food insecurity.

For example, poverty negatively affects caregivers’ mental health, which in turn affects child nutrition. Caregivers experiencing food insecurity have higher levels of depression and hopelessness. This potentially affects their capacity to provide the care and attention that children require. Expanding income support and community health services to caregivers can mitigate this cycle.

Disabled children and caregivers are another example. They face additional challenges and must be specifically targeted for tailored support.

Finally, children of seasonal farmworkers are highly vulnerable when their caregivers are without employment and not receiving unemployment insurance fund payments. Immediate food relief can prevent fluctuations in the quality and quantity of their diets.

May is Director DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security, University of the Western Cape and Simelane is a Professor of Practice, Human Sciences Research Council.

This article first appeared in The Conversation

SUNDAY TRIBUNE