South Africa's five-year plan against hunger met 11 of its 65 objectives

Johannesburg — South Africa's national plan to end hunger and malnutrition achieved only 11 of its 65 strategic objectives, and none of its 17 impact targets could be shown to have been met, Daily Maverick reports.

The National Food and Nutrition Security Plan ran from 2018 to 2023. It was meant to tackle the country's "double burden": undernutrition and obesity at the same time.

What went wrong

The plan needed R86.8 billion, which was never secured. The Food Security Council that was supposed to lead it never convened.

An independent evaluation completed in 2023 found fragmented reporting, indicators that did not match the goals, and a lack of political will at the highest level of government.

"Largely not implemented" is how Andrew Bennie, a senior researcher at the Institute for Economic Justice, describes it. He says there was no budget to carry it out and too little data to judge the results.

Some targets cannot be assessed at all. The last national health survey was in 2016, so there are no figures for goals such as reaching 90% of pregnant women with iron and folic acid supplements.

The government's reply

The Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation says the council's inaction resulted from "leadership changes and transition", and that technical committees did function. It rejects the finding on political will as an "independent opinion".

Foster Mohale, spokesperson for the health department, says the missing malnutrition data show a "monitoring gap, not proof" of failure.

One place it worked

Scott Drimie of the Southern Africa Food Lab points to the Breede Valley in the Western Cape, where local officials changed how they worked. Extending that to the province's other municipalities has been held back by a lack of long-term funding.

This report is based on reporting by Daily Maverick.