The Minister of Finance has announced an austerity budget at a time when the fissures of unresolved historical inequality, poverty and suffering are made so much sharper. The lives of people are going to be made so much worse, at a time when redistributive and...
Government is failing its hungry children spectacularly, writes Mandy Wiener. I don't know what it feels like to be hungry - true, gnawing, hollow hunger. But what I do know is that it is a feeling I would never want myself or my children to experience. In fact, it...
By Faranaaz Veriava and Sasha Stevenson The Pretoria High Court judgment affirms that school nutrition is a component of the right to basic education. The Pretoria High Court judgment affirms that school nutrition is a component of the right to basic education. The judgment in the school nutrition...
The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that followed have disrupted private food supply chains and the public support systems the poor rely on for food and good nutrition. But these problems have also triggered many creative and entrepreneurial responses. Corinna Hawkes of the Centre for...
Hunger has increased across the board under South Africa’s Covid-19 lockdown – and new evidence indicates that parents, especially mothers, are giving their food to their kids. The National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM) was published this week and shows that reported hunger among...
A new study suggests that a disturbing number of Eastern Cape households are going hungry, having run out of money to eat in April In Peddie in the Eastern Cape, children are eating wild plants to survive, as the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown take their...
by Ferial Haffajee Covid-19’s devastation has seen three million people lose their incomes. And almost half of all households report going hungry in the past three months, a heart-stopping new survey reveals. On 27 March, the hard lockdown was declared to try to hold off the spread...
By Gemma Ritchie for amaBhungane A bungled Sassa tender left confused service providers with warehouses full of food while also failing thousands of hungry South Africans. From November 2019 to the end of March 2020, Sassa delivered zero food parcels in six provinces despite the fact...
“The immediate impact of the public health crisis has revealed the deep fragility of the South African food system and exposed the injustices that underpin it. This has clearly been a disruption, presenting a period of deep uncertainty and change, creating an opportunity for a...
Civil society groups have played an important role in responding to the COVID-19 social crisis in South Africa. Examples include the “community action networks” in Cape Town and Gauteng, as well as similar initiatives in more rural areas, such as the Eastern Cape. They also include extraordinary crisis response efforts by...
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated both the unsustainability and the fragility of our current food system, across multiple scales. COVID-19 has proven to be the litmus test for the current industrialized food system, one that has, in certain circles, been championed as being the only...
The immediate impact of the public health crisis has revealed the deep fragility of the South African food system and exposed the injustices that underpin it. This has clearly been a disruption, presenting a period of deep uncertainty and change, creating an opportunity for a...
On 11 June 2020, members of the Food Lab advisory board discussed how the impacts of the Covid-19 public health crisis has revealed the deep fragility of the South African food system. There has clearly been a disruption, presenting a period of deep uncertainty and change,...
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“Understanding the complex and dynamic interrelationships between water, energy and food will enable cities to manage resources sustainably.” – Sandra Boatemaa, Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (Stellenbosch University). Systems-thinking means shifting narratives to include experiences that are otherwise overlooked. A circular approach accounts for the...
By Luke Metelerkamp, Taryn Pereira, Heila Lotz-Sisitka, Monde Duma, Monde Ntshudu, Lwande Maqwelane and Lawrence Sisitka As Covid-19 infections escalate in the Eastern Cape, confusion, misinformation and anxiety are rife. The need for clear, reliable and locally relevant information is urgent, especially in isolated rural communities....
By Andries du Toit and Diana Mitlin More than sixty days after its commencement, South Africa is cautiously easing its way out of one of the most sweeping lockdowns of the global Covid 19 pandemic. In many ways, this new phase—‘Level 3’ of the South African...
There are so many ways that communities around the world are being affected by COVID-19. Most of what we hear is about the problems. There are, after all, so many. But as the problems emerge, so do the innovation and commitment to find solutions. In...
Robyn Wolfson Vorster SA’s plans to combat child hunger were flawed prior to the Covid-19 crisis. And now, the absence of a strategic plan and funds for food relief could push already vulnerable children to the brink of starvation. Concern about child malnutrition made national news in...
Ben Cousins The COVID-19 crisis has clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of the livelihoods of many South Africans, and highlighted food insecurity as one key aspect. Many now argue that reducing the vulnerability of the livelihoods of the poor, and associated food insecurity, must become a key focus of...