THE LONG AND SHORT OF STUNTING IN SOUTH AFRICA WHY UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM IS IMPORTANT FOR POLICY CHANGE
Over a quarter of under-fives in South Africa are too short for their age — and the figure has been hovering around the same level for about three decades. But stunting is more than a growth problem; it’s also a developmental challenge. In February 2026, President Cyril Ramaphosa opened a critical window to kickstart real action in improving how children grow, calling stunting “a massive crisis that demands attention and resources”. This type of clear political commitment is needed for policy change, as evidenced by countries like Peru and Indonesia, which have both brought down stunting rates significantly in less than a decade.
Given the urgency with which stunting must be tackled in South Africa, strong strategic planning is necessary. For this to happen, the problem must first be well understood.
This learning brief is the first in an issue dedicated to unpacking the challenges of — and opportunities for — fixing early childhood nutrition, and looks at what multidisciplinary research tells us about the underlying complexities around stunting in South Africa.
Stop nutritional stunting of young children
GROWTH EQUALS POTENTIAL
Stunting is a sign that something is wrong in a society. Although it shows up as children being physically too short for their age, the problem extends beyond growth and into a child’s development.
Why? Because when children grow up in an environment in which they chronically go without adequate nourishment, their bodies — including their brains — don’t grow as they should. By the age of five, a child’s brain has reached 90% of its adult size and formed most of the neural connections that underlie thinking tasks.1 It follows that missing this early window of brain development can have long-term consequences for a child’s ability to learn, solve problems, make decisions and build relationships with others.
Indeed, studies show that children who grow so poorly that they become stunted by age two do worse at school than their friends whose growth was not stunted,2 and that those early cognitive deficits are hard to erase.3 In addition, these children often develop chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes or obesity later in life,4 which could limit the type of work they can do as adults or make them miss work days because they’re ill. These setbacks compound — people who were stunted as children often have lower-paying jobs and may struggle to escape poverty.5
HOW SHORT IS TOO SHORT?
Children are too short for their age if they’re shorter than 97.5% of children of their age. This is usually expressed as having a height-for-age Z-score of –2. The Z-score is derived from the standard deviation and is a way to see where a measurement falls proportionally in relation to the population mean. In a population, about 67% of children’s height measurements at a certain age are expected to fall within one standard deviation of the mean (i.e. Z = ±1), while 95% of children’s measurements are expected to fall within two standard deviations (i.e. Z = ±2). Of that proportion, half (approximately 2.5%) fall within the lower statistical tail and the other half are tall for their age.
Based on measurements of a large sample of children across six countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) calculated the mean typical height of children at different ages and plotted them on a graph.7 The heights that would represent one, two and three Z-scores above and below the mean were also calculated and plotted on the graph to create a standardised growth chart from birth to five years of age.
Even if stunting in South Africa were only to be halved by 2030, it could save the country about $5.5 billion in economic losses. That’s almost R94 billion at the current exchange rate.6
1 Society for Neuroscience. n.d. Brain Facts: A Primer on the Brain and Nervous System. Washington DC: Society for Neuroscience. https://www.brainfacts.org/thebrain-facts-book
2 Alam, M.A. et al. 2020. Impact of early-onset persistent stunting on cognitive development at 5 years of age: Results from a multi-country cohort study. PLoS ONE 15(2), e0229663.
3 Dewey, K.G. and Adu-Afarwuah, S. 2008. Systematic review of the efficacy and effectiveness of complementary feeding interventions in developing countries. Maternal & Child Nutrition 4(Suppl 1), pp. 24–85
Casale D. and Desmond, C. 2016. Recovery from stunting and cognitive outcomes in young children: Evidence from the South African Birth to Twenty Cohort Study. Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease 7(2), pp. 163–171.
4 Grey, K. et al. 2021. Severe malnutrition or famine exposure in childhood and cardiometabolic non-communicable disease later in life: A systematic review. BMJ Global Health 6(3), e003161.
5 McGovern, M.E. et al. 2017. A review of the evidence linking child stunting to economic outcomes. International Journal of Epidemiology 46(4), pp. 1171–1191
Galasso, E. and Wagstaff, A. 2019. The aggregate income losses from childhood stunting and the returns to a nutrition intervention aimed at reducing stunting. Economics & Human Biology 34, pp. 225–238.
6 Nutrition International. 2024. The cost of inaction: South Africa https://nutritionintl. org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Cost-of-Inaction-South-Africa-EN-FINAL-1.pdf
In South Africa, such growth charts are included in a child’s Road to Health booklet. When the child is measured, a health worker marks the measurement on the chart and can then easily determine, based on where the value lies, whether growth is on track. If the measurement is close to the mean, the child is growing well, but for measurements on or below the Z = –1 line, the child might be at risk of becoming stunted. A measurement falling on or below the Z = –2 line means the child is already stunted.
7 The set of reference values for boys and girls are different, and so separate growth charts are used for measuring boys and girls.
World Health Organization. 2006. WHO child growth standards: length/height-forage, weight-for-age, weight-for-length, weight-for-height and body mass indexfor-age – methods and development. Geneva: WHO. https://iris.who.int/bitstream/ handle/10665/43601/9789241595070_BoysGrowth_eng.pdf; https://iris.who.int/ bitstream/handle/10665/43601/9789241595070_GirlsGrowth_eng.pdf
MAKING SENSE OF STUNTING IN SOUTH AFRICA
The social determinants of health are poverty and inequality. Too many families are unable to access and afford nutritious food, and live in informal housing with inadequate sanitation. Poor nutrition and environmental factors that prevent children’s bodies from making optimal use of nutrients affect their immune systems, creating a cycle of chronic malnutrition and repeated infections that stunts growth.
Over a quarter of under-fives in South Africa are not growing as they should — a figure that has barely changed in about three decades.8 This translates into close to 1.6 million children who may never reach their full potential.9 But more than that: it’s about 1.6 million people who won’t be able to build a better life for themselves and their children — which is why allowing stunting to persist is a “moral injustice”, says Ronelle Burger, a development economist at Stellenbosch University. Burger has been instrumental in bringing together
Data from the National Food and Nutrition Security Survey (2024) shows that the prevalence of stunting in South Africa sits at just under 29%. In 1994, stunting prevalence was estimated at about 23%, and around 27% in both 2003 and 2016.
Said-Mohamed, R. et al. 2015. Has the prevalence of stunting in South African children changed in 40 years? A systematic review. BMC Public Health 15, 534. https://doi. org/10.1186/s12889-015-1844-9
Department of Health. 2019. South Africa Demographic and Health Survey 2016 NDoH, Stats SA, SAMRC and ICF: Pretoria, South Africa and Rockville, Maryland, USA
Simelane, T. et al. 2023. National Food and Nutrition Security Survey: National Report. Pretoria: HSRC.
9 Calculated as 29% of approximately 5.5 million under-fives.
Statistics South Africa. 2025. Mid-year population estimates 2025. Pretoria: StatsSA. https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0302/P03022025.pdf
We tend to think that because our bodies need food to grow, simply getting children to eat well will solve stunting. But the reality is more complicated. The human body is a system. And people’s lives are part of systems. The world around us is itself a system. Put all of this together and it becomes easier to understand that focusing on only one thing — like nutrition — won’t fix the problem. While nutrition is one of the closest determinants, other social factors also have interconnected roles.
Therein lies the rub. What do we know about the drivers and predictors of stunting and the factors that sustain them?
Here are four aspects revealed in multidisciplinary research by local experts into the complexities of stunting in South Africa:
1TRACKING STUNTING RATES OVER TIME HAS BEEN TRICKY
An analysis by Kate Rich and Liezel Engelbrecht showed that although there have been several surveys measuring the prevalence of stunting in South Africa over the past 25 years, it’s difficult to compare results because they didn’t all use the same sampling design or measurement methods.10 In fact, with some surveys showing stunting rates to be as high as 30% and others showing figures of around 20%, it’s clear we don’t really have a clear picture of the issue in South Africa. This is a problem if we want to track whether interventions to address stunting are working.
Two important considerations in tracking young children’s growth emerged from the analysis. The first relates to a set cut-off point being used to determine whether a child is stunted (also see “How short is too short?”). Arriving at that point is the result of a child not growing well for many months, and so the number of children at that boundary masks how many are on their way to becoming stunted. This means that the problem of chronic malnutrition among children — and by implication the risk of developmental deficits — is likely deeper than the numbers suggest. Tracking the full distribution (mean height-for-age) across surveys would therefore offer a more sensitive picture of population health. In other words, stunting should be viewed more as a population-wide problem, not just one in a high-risk group.
10 Rich, K. and Engelbrecht, L. 2025. Measuring stunting and tracking trends in prevalence in South Africa: Conceptual and methodological considerations. Development Southern Africa 42(6), pp. 750–770. https://doi.org/10.1080/037683 5X.2025.2568862
The second thing to keep in mind is the age of children being included in surveys that measure stunting rates. The way growth charts work, and the formula used to calculate how far a child’s height is from the ideal for a specific age, can distort the picture. The prevalence of stunting varies by age and tends to be higher in younger children. This means that if younger or older children are overrepresented in the sample, the average will be skewed — either too high or too low.
Rich and Engelbrecht conclude that irrespective of the exact prevalence of stunting, South Africa’s rate is much higher than a healthy population’s would be — and that’s where the real concern lies. Prioritising consistency, comparability and quality in data systems will help South Africa to track trends more reliably over time.
The National Food and Nutrition Security Survey (published in 2024) showed that close to 29% of under-fives in South Africa are stunted.11 This figure is close to what the WHO classifies as indicative of a considerable public health concern.12
STUNTING AROUND THE WORLD
DIGITAL MONITORING TOOLS CAN GIVE US A BETTER SHOT AT SOLVING STUNTING
Digital tools can help us get a better grip on how children are growing, write Anna-Marie Müller, Helen Donkin, Emma Chademana and Phiwe Dauwa 13
The authors reviewed three apps currently being used by community health workers in mostly rural areas in South Africa14 and found that the use of mobile devices makes recording growth measurements more accurate and less time consuming. The data can also be uploaded regularly. This means the process of tracking how children are growing becomes more efficient. If linked with location data, digital records can also be used to map what children’s growth looks like across the country and so help to identify hotspots where fast action is needed.
Source: UNICEF-WHO-World Bank: Joint child malnutrition estimates – Levels and trends (2023 edition)
11 Simelane, T. et al. 2023. National Food and Nutrition Security Survey: national report. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council.
Global Nutrition Report. n.d. The global burden of malnutrition at a glance https://globalnutritionreport.org/resources/nutrition-profiles/
12 World Health Organization. n.d. Malnutrition in children https://www.who.int/data/ nutrition/nlis/info/malnutrition-in-children
Being able to act quickly once a problem is identified, and track whether the intervention is working, is important because the window for correcting the conditions that result in stunting is brief. A baby who is not getting enough nutritious food falls behind the ideal growth path fastest between the ages of six months and 24 months, with stunting prevalence usually at its highest in children of about two years old, research shows.15 Moreover, it’s hard to undo the developmental damage of those first two years.16 The problem is that conducting a nationally representative study, analysing the data and reporting the results can take far longer than 18 months17 — not because people are dragging their feet, but because of the enormity of the task.
Despite the positives of using digital monitoring tools, it’s not without challenges. Patchy mobile networks and high data costs in South Africa, a lack of training among health workers, and the need for real-time support or troubleshooting can hamper the effectiveness of these digital solutions. In addition, the tools would need to sync with existing public health systems, and would require committed buy-in from policymakers to make the best of what the technology can offer.
13 Müller, A. et al. 2025. mHealth for community-based growth monitoring and promotion: Three case studies from South African settings. Development Southern Africa 42(6), pp. 837–854. https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835X.2025.2588713
14 Tools used by the Zero2Five Trust (https://zero2five.org.za/), Grow Great Campaign (https://growgreat.co.za/) and One to One Africa (https://www.onetooneafrica.org/)
15 Victora, C.G. et al. 2010. Worldwide timing of growth faltering: Revisiting implications for interventions. Pediatrics 125(3), e473–e480.
16 Dewey, K.G. and Adu-Afarwuah, S. 2008. Systematic review of the efficacy and effectiveness of complementary feeding interventions in developing countries. Maternal & Child Nutrition 4(Suppl. 1), pp. 24–85.
Casale, D. and Desmond, C. 2016. Recovery from stunting and cognitive outcomes in young children: evidence from the South African Birth to Twenty Cohort Study. Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease 7(2), pp. 163–171. https://doi. org/10.1017/S2040174415007175
17 For example, data collection for the most recent National Food and Nutrition Security Survey, of which results were released in 2024, started in 2021. See: Simelane et al., National Food and Nutrition Security Survey: National Report.
FOCUS ON THINGS THAT CAN HELP TO BUY TIME FOR LONGER-TERM SOLUTIONS
From the age of six months, a baby’s diet should include more than just breastmilk. But this is also the time when many children start showing signs of poor growth, because they often don’t get the right mix of nutrients from complementary food to support healthy development.
An analysis of international evidence by Ronelle Burger, Lisanne du Plessis, Trust Gangaidzo, Mastoera Sadan, Wiedaad Slemming and Gabrielle Wills18 showed that a daily nutrient supplement can be a good option in South Africa to help lift children at high risk of stunting out of the danger zone. The supplement — a paste of ground peanuts, vegetable oil, milk powder, a little sugar and 22 vitamins and minerals — is almost like a power shot of the macro- and micronutrients important for good growth, and is designed to be mixed into a child’s food every day for a period of 12 months.19 International evidence shows that the risk of stunting drops markedly in vulnerable children getting such a nutrient boost.
The paste doesn’t replace normal meals or breastmilk but improves the nutrient content of what a child eats in a day. Rolling out supplementation as a preventative intervention in areas where the risk of stunting is particularly high can make a difference, especially when combined with nutrition education, and analyses show that the benefits far outweigh the costs of implementing such programmes.20 This links back to the importance of accurate data on how children are growing and being able to identify hotspots where targeted action is needed fast.
In South Africa, we need to combine different strategies to address stunting because stand-alone interventions won’t be enough. Policies that improve the affordability of protein-rich and nutritious food are pitched as one of the most powerful levers (on page 28), showing that balancing the nutritional benefits of interventions with people’s everyday realities can drive real change.
CHILDREN WHOSE FATHERS ARE PART OF THEIR LIVES HAVE A BETTER CHANCE OF GROWING WELL
Household circumstances are often overlooked when we think about strategies to improve a child’s nutritional status. But a paper by Grace Leach and Dieter von Fintel reminds us that there’s more to children growing well than just food.21 Their analysis shows that the chance of stunting increases when children grow up without one or both their parents, whether because of death or economic circumstances preventing them from living together. The absence of fathers can be a particularly big disadvantage.
It’s a sobering finding, given that the analysis showed that one in two South African children under four grows up without their father, either because of death or absence. The authors write that households in which children live without a father have a risk of hunger, and that paternal orphans are more likely to be stunted than children who live with both their parents, extended family, or just their mother but with support from a living father. The death of a father can substantially lower household incomes and so limit the amount or type of food caregivers can buy.
However, the loss of a father’s income isn’t the only thing that leads to paternal orphans often going hungry. When a mother loses her children’s father, she often has to carry the responsibility of parenting alone. In the contextual reality of South Africa, this can increase the burden of care and add extra stress, the authors write, especially when a woman works a job that doesn’t pay much. Their findings underscore the complex interaction between socio-economic factors that affect children’s development, and the importance of a policy environment that invests in protecting children against stunting.
18 Burger, R. et al. 2025. Priority interventions for reducing stunting in the complementary feeding age group in South Africa. Development Southern Africa 42(6), 885–903. https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835X.2025.2596786
19 This intervention is commonly referred to as a small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplement.
20 Desmond, C. et al. 2021. Realising the potential human-development returns to investing in early and maternal nutrition: the importance of identifying and addressing constraints over the life-course. PLoS Global Public Health 1(10), e0000021. Adams, K.P. et al. 2023. Costs and cost-effectiveness of small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNS): report of the working group on cost and costeffectiveness. Institute for Global Nutrition, University of California, Davis.
21 Leach, G. and Von Fintel, D. 2025. Parental death, parental absence and stunting. Development Southern Africa 42(6), pp. 791–810. https://doi.org/10.1080/037683 5X.2025.2574658
ADDRESSING STUNTING IN SOUTH AFRICA
In February 2026, President Cyril Ramaphosa opened a critical window to kickstart real action in improving how children grow, calling stunting “a massive crisis that demands attention and resources”, in line with the promise of the National Strategy to Accelerate Action for Children (NSAAC).22
According to the theory of political scientist and public policy expert John Kingdon,23 this type of political commitment is what’s needed for policy change — provided that the underlying problem is well understood.
Getting experts together to publish their research in a dedicated forum like the special issue of Development Southern Africa is therefore a good departure point, says Burger, because it created a platform for “honest and vulnerable conversations” between experts from different disciplines. “People working in the child development space often have the same vision, but conversations are fragmented. To see where the big gains can be, we have to understand the complexities of stunting — and that needs a collaborative approach and a ‘lessons learnt’ kind of mentality,” she says.
According to Liezel Engelbrecht, the nutrition lead for the Hold My Hand Accelerator, a unit linked to a national campaign of action for children and teens in support of the NSAAC, President Ramaphosa’s commitment is a “valuable lever” in the fight against malnutrition. “It has brought high-level awareness and attention to stunting and opened the door for active conversation.”
But it’s more than just talk, she adds. “Because stunting is now formally high on the political agenda, different departments across all three spheres of government — national, provincial and local — will have to include stunting in their strategic plans. In turn, this means that funding and human resources can be allocated to the issue, without which plans can’t be rolled out.”
Given the urgent timeframe of the president’s call — to end stunting by 2030 — the National Food Security Council should be set up as a priority, notes Engelbrecht. Such a body, which
would bring together experts looking at food security from different angles and across different sectors, has officially been on the cards for more than a decade but has never gotten off the ground.24 “Every country that managed to make headway against stunting had a multi-sectoral body at a high political level like the president’s office to lead their strategy,” she says, adding that the example of the South African National Aids Council has shown how effective such a group can be when it has a presidential stamp of approval. (Read more about this in the next section on “How other countries beat stunting”.)
“Along with other organisations in the early child development and nutrition space, DGMT has long been advocating that children need to be at the centre of national development decisions,” says Engelbrecht. The memorandum of understanding between the Presidency and the Hold My Hand Accelerator, incubated by DGMT, puts the Accelerator in a good place to support work specifically related to the NSAAC, such as helping to end stunting.
22 Ramaphosa, C. 2026. State of the Nation Address. The Presidency, 12 Feb. https:// www.thepresidency.gov.za/state-nation-address-president-cyril-ramaphosa-1 23 Kingdon, J. 2010. Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policy, 2nd ed. New York: Pearson.
24 Department of Social Development & Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. 2013. National Policy on Food and Nutrition Security https://www.gov.za/ sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/37915gon637.pdf
HOW OTHER COUNTRIES BEAT STUNTING
The stories of how Peru and Indonesia beat stunting are remarkable. Like South Africa, both are upper middle-income countries, and both had national stunting rates of around 30% when they decided to do something about child malnutrition. Both countries managed to lower the rate by 10–15 percentage points in six to eight years.25 They did so by making the fight against stunting a political priority, which called for everyone to get on board: politicians, government departments, civil society, the private sector and communities.
In Peru, stunting became an election issue for four successive governments, and government budgets allocated money to evidence-based interventions, which paid out if specific results were achieved. Their plans focused on the poorest communities and targeted children up to the age of two, and involved different government departments. Mothers also received conditional cash payments, which were linked to taking their children for regular check-ups at clinics. Nationally, growth monitoring doubled in 10 years, and tripled in rural areas.26
Indonesia used a similar multi-department strategy backed by strong political leadership and presidential commitment.27 Their programme expanded rapidly from 100 priority districts in 2018 to 514 districts nationwide by 2022. It involved evidence-based interventions that would improve children’s nutrition status, either by focusing directly on dietary aspects or providing social support and services to help families to be healthier, like cash transfers and improving sanitation in villages. The country also invested in getting good data so that they could track the progress of implementation. Indonesia recognised stunting as a multi-sectoral problem that needed a multi-sectoral solution rolled out at a provincial, district and village level.
LESSONS LEARNT
Funding the publication of the special research issue is an example of how DGMT contributes to building the evidence base for solutions in order to support the government in its work. This collaborative relationship is important, says Engelbrecht. “DGMT’s role has been to help connect what communities are experiencing with what researchers and academics identify through evidence, and then to assess how these align with government priorities and policies. From there the focus moves to understanding, where support may be needed to help strengthen implementation and action.”
Here are five things that were learnt from the process of getting experts together to report on their work:
1
DEEP CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT DISCIPLINES CAN BUILD SOLUTIONS
Putting together a research publication focused on stunting has helped to surface the realities of the problem in South Africa. Despite considerable international evidence, there hasn’t been enough substantive local data to date on what stunting really looks like in the country and where the implementation gaps are. Interdisciplinary research conversations among academics, policymakers and NGOs can help not only to define the solutions but also to understand the social and political context that directs implementation capacity.
2
LOCAL RESEARCH ABOUT STUNTING CAN DRIVE PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS
“In a way, bringing together people from different knowledge bases was a proof of concept,” says Burger. Academics and policymakers may approach the same problem in different ways, which could mean that good research doesn’t always lead to good policy. But researchers, policymakers and practitioners working together on papers in this issue showed how valuable policy-focused research can be, says Burger. “This type of research is not academic; it’s solutions-oriented and practical. Putting together this special journal issue created a platform for the best ideas to surface through critical engagement and conversation.”
25 Peru had a national stunting prevalence of close to 28% in 2008, which dropped to 13% by 2016. Indonesia’s stunting rate was close to 31% in 2018, but dropped to just under 20% by 2024.
Marini, A. & Rokx, C. with Gallagher, P. 2017. Standing tall: Peru's success in overcoming its stunting crisis. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://documents1.worldbank.org/ curated/en/815411500045862444/pdf/FINAL-Peru-Nutrition-Book-in-English-withCover-October-12.pdf; https://nutritionintl.org/news/all-blog-posts/why-indonesiamust-guard-its-hard-won-progress-against-stunting/
26 Marini, Rokx & Gallagher, Standing tall, 2017.
27 Debebe, Z.Y. 2026. Prioritizing the fight against stunting: lessons learnt. Launch of special stunting-focused issue, Development Southern Africa, 21 Apr. PowerPoint presentation.
INCREASED AWARENESS ABOUT STUNTING IS A BIG STEP FORWARD
High-level political commitment to tackle stunting signals a significant shift in South Africa’s view on stunting. Continued advocacy by organisations like Grow Great28 over the last several years has helped to raise awareness about stunting and its costs to the country’s development path. Publishing a collection of in-depth studies and making the content freely available helps to sustain the momentum by showing how research connects to practical realities, says Burger.
SOLVING STUNTING NEEDS PARTNERSHIPS
Stunting isn’t a one-sided problem, nor will it be solved by a single actor. “We need buy-in from the private sector, civil society and the government to fix malnutrition,” says Engelbrecht, and high-level political commitment is a valuable lever. The government’s reach and structures are indispensable in facilitating the roll-out of interventions, and business and civil society must provide support where implementation and resources are needed. A proposal for food retailers to forego mark-up profits on 10 selected protein-rich foods, and the government then matching the price cut to give consumers more purchasing power, is an example of how such partnerships can work in practice. NGOs that train and manage community health workers to do growth monitoring, and so extend the work of primary healthcare facilities, is another example of practical collaboration.
CONVERSATIONS BUILD TRUST
The research included in the special journal issue has brought people together, and helped them to understand one another better, notes Burger. “I’ve been amazed at how open this community is to learn from others and critically examine their own work. People have been collaborative, not competitive; they’ve been kind and generous in sharing ideas and mentoring others.” An environment that fosters listening and learning to achieve alignment in approach is crucial for iterative problemsolving, given the complexity of weaving different strands together to craft real-world solutions for stunting.
WHAT’S NEXT?
With the new version of the National Food and Nutrition Security plan being finalised and prepared for review, and in the context of the clear political will to address malnutrition, the council to oversee food and nutrition security must finally be set up. Evidence from countries that have beaten stunting clearly shows that strong leadership is needed to drive a national nutrition programme.
At a more immediate level, conversations should continue, says Burger, to ensure that there’s a “collaborative vision of where we go next” — especially in light of prioritising interventions that can yield good results fast and so keep the momentum going in the fight against stunting.
This is the learning experience of:
This brief was written by Linda Pretorius and edited by Rahima Essop, with inputs from Liezel Engelbrecht and Ronelle Burger.
28 Grow Great seeks to mobilise South Africa towards a national commitment to zero stunting by 2030.