Every day, the Shalom Day Centre in Richie, Northern Cape, closes at noon because it cannot afford to provide lunch or snacks for the 56 children aged between two and five, in its care. Due to high unemployment in the area, only 20% of parents can afford to make a minimal contribution to the centre’s costs.
This is the reality for thousands of early childhood development (ECD) centres across South Africa’s nine provinces.
While public awareness of South Africa’s childhood stunting crisis is becoming more widespread, there is an urgent need to move beyond awareness and into action. Many of the initiatives by corporate social programmes, communities, NGOs and government departments are highly effective, but they operate in parallel rather than in concert — resulting in a fragmented response.
Key to scaling up the response is connection, communication and co-ordination. No single organisation, sector or intervention can tackle this problem on its own.
The first milestone: awareness is rising
The problem is far greater than a nation whose children are too hungry to focus on learning at school. Data from the 2016 South Africa Demographic and Health Survey (SADHS) shows that only 23% of children aged 6 to 23 months receive a minimum acceptable diet. A UNICEF Situation Analysis (SADHS 2016/2024) similarly finds that only 21% of children under five meet minimum dietary standards, while around 29% are stunted—defined as being too short for their age due to chronic undernutrition in early development.
Stunting occurs during the first 1 000 days of life when children do not receive adequate nutrition, and is associated with irreversible physical and cognitive impairment, higher mortality risk, and long-term developmental disadvantage.
While inadequate nutrition is a primary driver, stunting is also shaped by broader socio-economic factors. Its consequences extend beyond health: adults who were stunted as children earn 15–23% less than their non-stunted peers, in sub-Saharan Africa (Akseer, 2022).
President Cyril Ramaphosa put stunting firmly on the nation’s agenda in this year’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), when he said:
“More than a quarter of children under 5 are stunted, increasing their risk of disease and affecting their ability to learn and grow. This is devastating for children and their families and has an impact on our society as a whole. This year, we will embark on a mission to end child stunting by 2030 and tackle malnutrition among young children, in line with the National Strategy to Accelerate Action for Children. We will focus on the crucial first 1,000 days of a child’s life.”
In May this year, the Children’s Amendment Bill was approved by Cabinet. The bill, among other clauses, sets out a clearer mandate for how government will support under-resourced programmes. It will enable far more early childhood development (ECD) centres, which have been unable to register to receive government support, to qualify.
At the recent 2026 Trialogue Business in Society Conference, the focus was on partnerships, catalytic capital, ecosystem support and funding for impact. The next public conversation must be not why this matters, but how to organise funding at scale.
South Africa already has the commitment. What’s needed now is the co-ordination that turns commitment into delivery — children reached, growth measured, and outcomes documented.
The second milestone: action
The impact of the resources that are already being poured piecemeal into addressing childhood nutrition can be considerably multiplied by creating co-ordinated delivery models. In these models, roles must be clearly defined, interventions should be evidence-based, and funding should support measurable outcomes.
This cannot be a solution that is imposed on communities. Delivery of the solutions should happen through trusted community channels. That is where scale becomes possible. At Compact Food Solutions in South Africa, we are building one example of how this coordinated model could work.
Raise a Life. Raise a Nation. is building a collaborative model that brings childhood nutrition manufacturing, distribution, clinical, and implementation partners together around a first operational cohort in the Western Cape later this year. We are now inviting corporates, foundations, and technical partners to invest in this evidence-based initiative.
The framework is designed for measurable delivery from day one: clinically reviewed products, structured implementation through Compact Food Solutions and FoodForward SA, and rigorous outcome reporting that demonstrates how funding translates into verified results for South Africa’s children.
The destination: real impact
If child stunting is now a defined national priority, then the task ahead is to build the delivery channel that turns intent into coordinated action. This means moving beyond fragmented initiatives and policy discussion towards practical partnership models that connect government, corporates, NGOs and communities into a coherent system of response—capable of delivering measurable, long-term impact for South Africa’s most vulnerable children.
