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Aiming for Zero Hunger in South Africa What Has Been Done and What Still Needs to Happen
WORDS Anita Kaksrud
Have you ever been really hungry at school or work? If that’s a yes, then you know most people are not in the best of emotional states when they’re hungry. A hungry child at school is more likely to experience mood swings, aggression and poor academic performance than their adequately-nourished peers. Sadly, hunger is a daily reality for 23 million children in Africa alone.
Global Goal: Zero Hunger
The UN Sustainable Development Goals were enacted on 1 January 2016, and consist of 17 goals to help promote prosperity for everyone around the globe while protecting the planet. These Global Goals are designed to build on the success of the Millennium Development Goals and every country, regardless of the level of development, is expected to follow up on individual targets in order to reach the intended goals by 2030.
According to the UN, 66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone. Photo: Bill Wegener / Unsplash.com
Quite high on the list (Goal 2) is Zero Hunger, which seeks to ‘End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.’
Over the past 13 years, South Africa has made great strides towards achieving this goal, but there is still much work to be done to ensure that each citizen has an adequate amount of food.
This article aims to highlight the progress of two of the eight targets set to assist in achieving the overreaching goal of Zero Hunger by 2030, namely to:
- End hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round
- Double the productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers
As ambitious as these goals may be, there are organisations working tirelessly to combat hunger and malnutrition among South Africa’s most vulnerable.
Why are South Africans hungry?
In 2016, 3 out of 10 individuals had inadequate access to food in Cape Town. In 2015, 13% of all children in South Africa lived in households who reported child hunger, and 77% of children aged 6–23 months were not fed an acceptable diet.
‘High unemployment rates, substance abuse and child-headed households all have a significant impact on food security in our most vulnerable households,’ Fahima Adam, who manages the Projects Abroad Nutrition Project in Cape Town, explained.
‘Purchasing of alcohol often places great strain on a household with a small budget thereby leaving very little money to buy food. Substance abuse is also common in working-age adults and often leads to them being unable to contribute to the household’s income.’
Due to climate change, resources are diminishing and countries are experiencing extreme conditions such as drought and floods. If we are to feed the 815 million hungry, there must be a dramatic change in the global food and agriculture system. Photo: Markus Spiske / Unsplash.com
Adams continued, ‘In addition to these two factors, job scarcity, a high number of high school dropouts or the financial strain of higher education often result in minimum wage jobs being the only opportunity for income, making food security difficult to sustain in these communities.’
Pregnant women, the elderly and young children are particularly vulnerable when it comes to lack of nutrition. Babies born to mothers who experience food insecurity during pregnancy can suffer from intrauterine growth retardation and low birth weight.
‘The higher prevalence of children born to mothers who did not receive adequate nutrition, means that the burden of disease caused by chronic malnutrition may increase,’ said Adam. ‘This along with the effect of HIV and TB on an adult’s ability to work and bring money into the household further impacts food security.’
What is being done to eradicate hunger?
Earlier this year, the University of Pretoria’s Albert Luthuli Centre for Responsible Leadership also launched the South African SDG Hub – a resource aimed at linking South African policy makers with SDG-relevant research and innovation. The Hub, initially only an online platform, focusses on collecting, tagging and disseminating South African research relevant for the implementation of the SDGs.
In a bulletin published by the SA SDG Hub, the national Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, said government has, in the medium term, committed to ensuring food security through the implementation of a comprehensive food security and nutrition strategy. The strategy is set to benefit 4.3 million vulnerable people through the cultivation of 1 million hectares of under-utilised land in communal areas and land reform projects.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the UNDP’s Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme in partnership with Biowatch South Africa has hosted several workshops to train small-scale traditional farmers on best practices and how to establish household seed banks. The project has also facilitated knowledge-sharing with international experts and exchange visits with other areas in the region.
‘The food you choose to eat impacts every aspect of your life. Good food choices, even with fewer resources, can improve academic performance, work proficiency and mental wellness,’ Adam explained.
The Projects Abroad Nutrition Project in Cape Town further provides nutrition education to underprivileged communities and aims to empower them with the knowledge needed to make healthy food choices with the limited resources at their disposal.
‘The food you choose to eat impacts every aspect of your life. Good food choices, even with fewer resources, can improve academic performance, work proficiency and mental wellness,’ Adam explained.
How do we end hunger?
If South Africa is to achieve their Zero Hunger targets, everyone, – citizens and government alike – needs to work together, argues UN Development Programme Economic Advisor, Fatou Leigh. ‘The effective implementation of the SDGs requires a great involvement and ownership of the goals and the process by the people. And for the goals to be mainstreamed in the policies and strategic plans for the country both at the national and the provincial level,’ Leigh said.
Fahima Adam runs a nutrition project to teach people how to make more nutritious food choices on a limited budget. Part of the project requires the careful monitoring of children’s height and weight. Photo: Anita Kaksrud
Adam and her volunteers are among those working to advance progress and help achieve create Zero Hunger. The Nutrition project has monitored the growth of 1,200 children in South Africa and advised teachers, caregivers, and parents accordingly. They have also built vegetable gardens for more than 200 people to support healthy local produce, as well as running cooking classes to educate community members.
According to Kanayo Nwanze, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Special Goodwill Ambassador on Zero Hunger for the Africa Region, ending hunger also calls for a transformation that must begin with the rural sector, because ‘these are the populations of farmers, fishers, herders and pastoralists that are hit the hardest by hunger, poverty, climate change, and conflict.’
Nwanze said farming is not just a way of life, but also an economic activity and a money-generating business that produces food, feeds people, creates jobs and empowers people.
‘It is the pathway to sustainable development. Broad-based and inclusive rural transformation is a pre-requisite to ending hunger or achieving Zero Hunger, because Africa’s poor and hungry live mostly in rural areas.’
Is this even possible?
Zero Hunger is an ambitious goal to meet. In the next 12 years, 13.4 million people will need to be enabled with access to enough food every day, and the number is increasing.
Whether or not South Africa will be able to meet their goals remains unclear. A study published in the science journal, Nature concluded that no African country will meet the SDG of ending hunger. Even though Adam tries to stay as positive as she can, she agrees. ‘If everyone does their part, it is a realistic goal. But to depend on everyone to do their part is unrealistic… It should be a realistic goal, but I don’t think it is.’
Nevertheless, this is no reason to give up. ‘One person I help each week is one more than zero,’ Adam emphasised.
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