MALNUTRITION: Broken promises — how SA’s National Food and Nutrition Security Plan missed the mark

Despite South Africa's ambitions to combat hunger and malnutrition through its National Food and Nutrition Security Plan (2018-2023), the plan fell short of its goals. The plan aimed to address issues like hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition but struggled with governance bodies, funding shortages, fragmented monitoring systems, and provincial bottlenecks.

The initial plan was largely not implemented due to a lack of budget availability and the inability to assess most objectives because of poor data collection. The first strategic objective, to establish a National Food Security (FNS) Council for coordination, was established but never met, due to leadership changes and transitions that coincided with its development.

Although subcommittees were functional, they didn't meet as intended due to the FNS Council's absence. Monitoring and evaluation were also problematic, with no unified evaluation taking place. The evaluation in 2023 found that none of the five Objective 6 indicators met their 2023 targets, citing issues like weak adaptive management and most impact indicators being unable to be assessed.

The DPME attributed these problems to pre-existing departmental systems that could monitor food security and nutritional status, but no consolidated tracking mechanism was available due to funding constraints. Despite the failed implementation, the DPME claims that the lack of monitoring did not affect the plan's implementation, as remedial action was taken where necessary.