The Democratic Alliance (DA) used today’s debate on South Africa’s malnutrition emergency to expose the state’s failure to protect children from hunger, stunting and preventable disease. This crisis made worse by weak coordination, poor monitoring, collapsing provincial systems, and the absence of a unified national strategy.
DA MPs Bridget Masango, Ciska Jordaan and Dr Karl le Roux unpacked how fragmented programmes, provincial mismanagement, food insecurity and missed early-childhood interventions have trapped millions of children in a cycle of chronic undernutrition. They emphasised that malnutrition is not only a humanitarian disaster but an economic one undermining learning, productivity and future earnings.
The DA warned that the state continues to fail at the most basic duty: ensuring that every child has access to sufficient, nutritious food. They called for a whole-of-society response with stronger oversight, improved maternal and early-childhood support, reform of failing provincial delivery models, and the adoption of evidence-based community interventions that can rapidly detect and reverse malnutrition.
Herewith the speeches that were delivered:
Full speech– Bridget Masango MP –
- If every child in South Africa was given the basics of food, safety, and a chance to grow, our nation would look very different.
- But today, we face a reality of too many of our children trapped in a cycle of hunger.
- This crisis did not happen overnight. It has grown because, for years, our efforts have been fragmented, underfunded, and uncoordinated.
- But we are not here today to lament. We are here to take responsibility, to confront the past, and to build a different future, starting now.
- Our Constitution promises every child the right to basic nutrition. Not a dream. Not a slogan. A right. And rights demand action.
Full speech– Dr Karl le Roux –
- The fact that 155 children have died of severe malnutrition in the first four months of 2025 is simply heartbreaking.
- Mild to moderate malnutrition is the underlying cause of half of South Africa’s under 5 deaths – meaning nearly 20 000 deaths in SA in 2023.
- Stunting remains remarkably high at about 28%.”
- Understanding malnutrition in this way, spanning generations and shaping lifelong outcomes, has important implications for public policy.”
- If we use a whole of society approach… we can banish malnutrition from our society.
Full speech– Ciska Jordaan –
- 63.5% of South Africans face some form of food insecurity… more than 2.7 million children live in households that are unable to meet their nutritional needs.
- For close to ten million South African learners, the only meals they can count on in a day are the ones they receive at school. Schools are a critical source of nutrition.
- One of the most instrumental tools we have to fight against hunger and malnutrition is the National School Nutrition Programme.
- This programme continues to be undermined by provincial mismanagement, weak monitoring, and failed coordination at a provincial level in some provinces
- These failures, payment delays, poor monitoring, inflated supplier lists, weak coordination, are avoidable!