Pandemic underscores gross inequalities in South Africa, and the need to fix them

Per-Anders Pettersson.
GettyImages

Now more than ever, South Africans are painfully aware of the inequalities that continue to play out in the country. In people’s pre-COVID-19 lives, the realities of living in a country that is among the most unequal in the world were easily overlooked. The pandemic shines a very bright light on this reality. It asks us to fundamentally address them – not just at this time of the pandemic, but as a social justice imperative.

As messaging about preventing the coronavirus ramped up, the consequences of inequalities in the provision of basic service provision in the country have become clear. These disparities between rich and poor are reflected across a range of interventions that have been put in place to manage the pandemic and its social and economic consequences. These include access to water, housing circumstances, as well as people’s very high dependence on social grants and the informal sector for income.

Five areas where inequality is starkest

Living circumstances: The preventive measures have highlighted inequalities in living circumstances. Take the case of hand washing. The 1.1 to 1.4 million people who live in informal settlements in South Africa don’t have access to water in their homes or in their yards. An estimated 19% of the nearly 19 million people living in rural areas lack access to reliable supply of clean water; 33% do not have basic sanitation. This makes regular hand washing difficult. And social distancing or quarantining is near impossible when water access and ablutions are communal, and where settlements are overcrowded.

Livelihoods: For many people at the upper end of the wage spectrum, working remotely has been relatively easy, with limited impact on their ability to earn a living. Such workers are in the formal labour market. They are protected by both a legal and social contract as well as a safety net of unemployment benefits.

Small business owners will be under significant pressure in the coming weeks and months. But they will be partially cushioned by the business support measures announced by the government.

In contrast, the most vulnerable workers will struggle without support at this time. Casual workers (like many domestic workers), those who are self-employed (such as Uber drivers), and those working in the informal economy are not protected by legal contracts.

In general these workers, who make up over 20% of South Africa’s workforce, cannot access unemployment benefits. They will be under enormous pressure financially, potentially unable to feed themselves and their families.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has made it clear that the government is aware of these challenges and will move to ensure support. But it remains to be seen what that entails.

Education: Inequalities in education were also immediately evident when school were closed. While private schools and many suburban public schools were able to switch to technology-supported learning relatively easily, most public schools were not.

The directive by the Department of Basic Education was to ensure that learning continued by providing workbooks and worksheets online. But, many parents will be facing the very real struggle of supporting their families in a locked down economy. This, and other problems, including limited access to technology and data, means that many parents will struggle to supervise their children’s learning.

Equally concerning is how this will affect education outcomes in the longer term. Analysis already shows how learning backlogs in the early years, forged in an unequal education system, are compounded over time. Further backlogs under the current situation are likely to have long-term effects.

Access to the internet: Manuel Castells, a sociologist concerned with the internet age and inequality, notes in his book The Internet Galaxy:

The fundamental digital divide is not measured by the number of connections to the Internet, but by the consequences of both connection and lack of connection.

At universities and other higher education institutions, wealthier students have been able to switch to online learning quickly, while poorer students battle with high data costs.

Inequalities in access to data further entrench existing inequalities in education and livelihoods during the COVID-19 crisis.

Food security: The effects of panic buying on the food security of people with limited income has received attention. But a less well-known impact of the measures is that over 9 million children will not receive a daily, nutritious meal while schools remain closed.

The National School Nutrition Programme potentially has positive effects on reducing stunting and obesity. In the face of prolonged school closures, these children face increased food insecurity, with potential long-term consequences for their health.

There have been heartwarming responses from the public to ensure that food packs are provided to children. But it is simply not possible to reach the over 9 million children who depend on this meal.

What can be done?

The measures announced by President Ramaphosa to mitigate the problem reflect an understanding of how existing inequalities will affect especially the most vulnerable people, and a willingness to address the problem.

Social protection measures that can quickly provide a safety net are crucial at this time. But, the current social protection system provides a safety net only to those outside of the labour market – children, older people, and people with disabilities. Unemployment benefits accrue to those in formal employment who contribute to the Unemployment Insurance Fund. This leaves the vast majority of working-age adults without a safety net at this time.

While there have been relatively quick changes to existing mechanisms to provide support to small, medium and micro enterprises there are, as yet, no measures to protect informal and casual workers and ensure cash injections into vulnerable households.

The country needs to devise a social contract to better address the vulnerabilities that low-wage, casual and informal workers face daily.

The country must also move towards having low-cost, reliable internet access that can open up opportunities for learning and work for its most vulnerable citizens. Basic services – such as clean water, electricity and sanitation – must also be of a quality that not only promotes people’s right to dignity, but also help protect people from the effects of such a pandemic as COVID-19.

This pandemic highlights how crucial it is to fundamentally address the inequalities that exist in South African society. If a social justice imperative does not push us to do so, perhaps the realisation of mutual connections, borne of a pandemic that knows no class or race lines, will.

---

Read more:
South Africa can – and should – top up child support grants to avoid a humanitarian crisis

---

Lauren Graham, Associate professor at the Centre for Social Development in Africa, University of Johannesburg, University of Johannesburg

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

South Africa needs to end the lockdown: here's a blueprint for its replacement

An elderly man at a social grant paypoint in South Africa after the COVID-19 lockdown. (Photo by MARCO LONGARI / AFP) ()
Photo by Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images

The public debate on strategies to tackle COVID-19 often unhelpfully positions health and economic considerations in a diametric fashion – as trade-offs. In fact, economic policy has health consequences. And health policy has economic consequences. The two need to be seen as parts of a coherent whole.

In the case of South Africa, the country currently faces three interrelated problems. These are the public health threat from the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic and health effects of the lockdown, and a range of intractable economic problems not directly due to the current pandemic. These include high unemployment, low economic growth and falling per capita income.

Any potentially viable response to COVID-19 needs to address all three aspects in concert. This is particularly important as the country plans for the next stage of its response after the lockdown. Focusing only on the health challenges and not paying attention to the economic issues will result in significantly higher economic costs, and will also undermine the health imperatives.

Our view is that a protracted lockdown won’t necessarily have the effect of ridding the country of the virus, but it will result in unacceptably high health and economic consequences.

The cost

The initial lockdown was prudent and is likely to have lowered the risk of community spread of SARS-CoV-2.

But the true number of COVID-19 (the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2) cases is difficult to quantify. A limited number of tests have been done, and community-wide screening for suspected infectious cases has been delayed.

The available evidence on the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that any initial containment of the disease through a lockdown will be short-lived. Also, it’s likely to result in a rebound of cases in the absence of aggressive community-wide screening for SARS-CoV-2 infectious cases, isolation of the identified cases and quarantine of their close contacts for at least 14 days.

On top of this, South Africa may find itself permanently harmed by the simultaneous destruction of both the demand and supply sides of the economy under an extended generalised lockdown.

This will have other unintended long term health and economic consequences. For example, an extended lockdown could result in the undermining of other health services, such as the immunisation of children.

The economic effects of a lockdown, too, are severe.

Early forecasts suggest significant economic disruption from the current lockdown, which is costing the economy an estimated R13 billion per day. Preliminary projections by the South African Reserve Bank indicate that South Africa could lose 370,000 jobs in 2020. Projections by private banking analysts (based on the initial 21-day lockdown) suggest a GDP contraction of 7% during 2020, leading to a fiscal deficit of 12% of GDP (forecast at 6.8% in the 2020 budget) and a debt-to-GDP ratio in excess of 81% in 2021. This means that the country’s already limited public finances will be further constrained.

Towards a post-lockdown strategy

Globally, attention is turning from initial containment through generalised lockdowns to short- and medium-term risk-based public health and economic strategies. We present some considerations for a health and economic policy beyond the lockdown in South Africa.

In this we proceed from the following assumptions:

• The SARS-CoV-2 will not be eliminated in South Africa until either a vaccine is introduced (yet to be developed), or sufficient natural immunity in the population is achieved. It is therefore necessary to put in place and maintain a sustainable mitigation strategy for COVID-19 for the remainder of 2020, or until a vaccine is available (an optimistic timeline for this is 18-24 months).
• A generalised lockdown is not a viable long-term prevention strategy for COVID-19 due to its deleterious effects, including the resultant long-term impact on society, public health and the economy.
• Removal of the lockdown without appropriate health and economic measures will result in an excess mortality from COVID-19, resulting in further economic hardship.

South Africa’s health and economic strategy beyond the current lockdown must be designed to ensure good health care and be economically sustainable. We argue that the country needs to transition to a risk-based strategy which offers effective health protection and allows for the resumption of some economic activity.

This approach has been advocated by researchers in both Germany and the Indian state of Kerala.

Accordingly, the following objectives should be central to any policy.

• First, mitigate the rapid spread of the virus, while allowing for natural immunity in the population to increase gradually.
• Second, strengthen health care systems to ensure optimal treatment for as many patients as possible, both those with COVID-19 and those with other serious illnesses.
• Third, protect individuals at high risk for severe COVID-19 disease; and
• Fourth, make economic activities possible with measures in place to manage the health risks associated with these activities.

Economic and health strategies

At the highest level, there are three broad intervention strategies available to South Africa (summarised in the table below), adapted from a recent article by leading Australian health academics James Trauer, Ben Marais and Emma McBryde. We believe that option three is the only practicable one for South Africa. And the details of its implementation matter.

Table 1: Typology of interventions and risks

Adapted from (Trauer et al., 2020)

A health strategy based on an extended generalised lockdown is economically unsustainable. It is also damaging to public health. Instead, we need a unified health and economic strategy that allows for some economic activity while inhibiting the uncontrolled spread of the virus. This requires a number of health and economic measures to be implemented in a coordinated manner.

First, to reduce the rate of infections, the country must have ready the capability of mass virus testing and efficient contact tracing before the end of April 2020. This must be accompanied by a comprehensive approach to social distancing. Relying solely on screening of symptomatic individuals will not effectively reduce the rate of infection because high viral loads of SARS-CoV-2 in the upper airway occur in pre-symptomatic and possibly asymptomatic people.

To be successful, the scale of testing needs to be at least equivalent to that in South Korea (17,322 tests per day in South Africa, eventually testing 1 in 150 people). At best, it must be equivalent to that carried out in Germany (36,399 tests per day in South Africa).

Test turnaround times must result in identification of infected individuals within 12 to a maximum of 24 hours. This must be followed by immediate isolation and contact tracing. Isolation of infected individuals and contact quarantine must last for at least 14 days, either at home, if suitable, or in designated isolation and quarantine facilities.

The annual cost of conducting 17,000 tests per day is approximately R5 billion. There would perhaps be an additional annual cost of R4 billion for contact tracing and quarantine. These costs compare favourably to the daily economic cost (R13 billion) of the generalised lockdown.

Secondly, economic activities must be allowed in a way that is consistent with the aim of preventing the uncontrolled spread of the virus. Within the constraints of the health strategy outlined above, a risk-based economic strategy is required that balances economic and health imperatives.

Decisions on differential opening of the economy should be made in line with the criteria proposed in a recent paper by German researchers. This includes, for example, opening sectors with low risk of infection (highly automated factories) and less vulnerable populations (child-care facilities) first. It could also include areas with lower infection rates and less potential for the spread of COVID-19. Of course, these decisions will have to be based on a careful assessment of factors such as household structure and composition in South Africa, and public transport.

To do this, the country will need excellent data on the extent and location of any community outbreaks of the virus. Such data will be generated by mass testing, and accurate information about the ability of certain sectors of the economy to reopen safely and in compliance with the health protocols.

The health and economic strategy will thus need to be implemented in a dynamic fashion, responding to the latest evidence.

This article has been amended to reflect updated estimates of the daily cost of the lockdown.

Cas Coovadia, member of the University of the Witwatersrand Council, also contributed to the discussions that led to the writing of this article

Shabir Madhi, Professor of Vaccinology and Director of the MRC Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand; Alex van den Heever, Chair of Social Security Systems Administration and Management Studies, Adjunct Professor in the School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand; David Francis, Deputy Director at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of the Witwatersrand; Imraan Valodia, Dean of the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, and Head of the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of the Witwatersrand; Martin Veller, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, and Michael Sachs, Adjunct Professor, Economics, University of the Witwatersrand

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Why South Africa's children are vulnerable to violence and injuries

South Africa’s deep structural poverty is part of the explanation for injuries to children.
Shutterstock

South African children are vulnerable to injuries, not just those that are accidental but also those inflicted intentionally. This is according to the 2019 Child Gauge report, an annual publication that explores how children in South Africa are faring.

The report notes that injuries to children span from burns to drowning and from road traffic injuries to fatal child abuse. More than 8,000 children die every year as a result of injuries. About 5,000 of these are accidental or unintentional. The leading causes of child injury deaths in South Africa are road traffic injuries (36%), homicide (28%), unintentional injuries such as burns and drowning (27%) and suicide (8.5%), which is considered intentional.

In a society like South Africa which has deep structural poverty, the causes of injuries to children are often linked to the circumstances in which people live. For example, poor infrastructure and harsh living conditions expose children to high levels of neglect, harm and injury in the home and community.

Even though most injuries may not be inflicted intentionally, they shouldn’t be considered as accidents. This is because most injuries occur in the context of inadequate care. Most can be prevented by ensuring children’s safety in their homes, schools, recreational spaces, community settings and the transport connections between them.

Patterns of child injuries

Child safety interventions should take into account the child’s evolving capacities and stage of development. The risks change as children become more independent and move out of home into schools and the wider community.

Young children are particularly vulnerable to falls, drowning and hot water burns because of their natural curiosity and increasing mobility. School-aged children are at risk of road traffic injuries, especially because 67% of them walk to school. Adolescents tend to overestimate their ability to negotiate often complex and hazardous traffic environments and are primed to engage in risk-taking behaviour.

Efforts to prevent childhood injuries often start by making children and families aware of the dangers. Families should keep poisons, matches, electrical appliances, water containers and hot water away from young children. Children must wear safety belts in vehicles and be supervised closely near open water and other dangers.

Yet individual behaviour change can only go so far.

Many of the drivers of violence and injury are structural in nature. For example, it’s harder to keep children safe when living in a two-room shack and using candles and a paraffin stove. Walking to school in an informal settlement or a busy urban space where there are no pavements is also riskier. It’s more difficult to protect children from violence in communities where poverty, unemployment and substance abuse fuel conflict both within and outside the family.

In fact, violence and injury share many common risk factors. They include poverty, poor infrastructure, harsh living conditions, gender inequality, violent forms of masculinity, and widespread abuse of alcohol and drugs. All these expose children to both violent and unintentional injury.

Yet, evidence from South Africa and elsewhere shows that such epidemics can be prevented. South Africa has many organisations dedicated to preventing injury and promoting resilient children, families and communities. This work needs to be recognised, along with the countless efforts by families to protect their children.

Many of the local evidence-based programmes are showcased in the Child Gauge. For example, several communities have introduced “walking buses” where families and community members accompany children to and from school, helping to protect them from violence and traffic dangers. There are also violence prevention and urban upgrade initiatives to create safe public spaces and neighbourhood resource centres where children can play.

The question is how to take these to scale.

What needs to be done

To turn the tide of violence and unintentional injury alike, the country needs greater leadership and collaboration across sectors to address the overlapping risk factors.

Countries that have seen the greatest gains in violence and injury prevention have invested in leadership to push for interventions that are known to work. The World Health Organisation has reported that countries such as Australia, Canada and France have reduced their injury death rates, some by as much as half and within a 10 to 20 year period. Many others, such as South Africa, have also begun investing in research, programmes and capacities for safety interventions.

Violence and injury rates were reduced in these countries because of concerted efforts that were often led by government and community coalitions as part of a national strategy or programme focused on injury and violence prevention. Therefore a massive coordinated shift is necessary to deliver such interventions and services to communities at scale.

It’s time for government to identify child safety as a strategic priority, build partnerships with nongovernmental organisations and develop an intersectoral plan to promote the safety of South Africa’s children.

This article is based on a chapter in the Child Gauge report “Violence, injury and child safety: The new challenge for child health”.

Shanaaz Mathews, Professor, University of Cape Town and Ashley Van Niekerk, Deputy Unit Director and Senior Specialist Scientist and Professor Extraordinarius: UNISA Institute for Social and Health Sciences, South African Medical Research Council

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Money from Lottery goes to cousin of National Lotteries Commission boss

Only a fraction of the R11 million grant appears to have gone to its intended purpose

National Lotteries Commission COO Phillemon Letwaba signed off a multi-million rand Lottery grant to a non-profit organisation directed by his family member. Photo copied for fair use from NLC website

The National Lotteries Commission has given more than R11 million to a non-profit organisation (NPO) called I Am Made for God’s Glory, which has in turn paid R2 million to a private company of which the sole director is the cousin of the chief operating officer of the National Lotteries Commission.

According to leaked bank statements, R2 million was paid to Upbrand Properties by I Am Made For God’s Glory (IAM4GG), which received a R11,375,000 grant from the Lottery to develop an “integrated sports facility” in Limpopo.

The sole director of Upbrand is Kenneth Tomoletso Sithole, first cousin of NLC chief operating officer Phillemon Letwaba.

GroundUp has previously revealed how Upbrand received a R15-million contract to build a rehabilitation centre near Pretoria at a time when Letwaba’s brother, Johannes “Joe” Letwaba, was a director of the company. Johannes Letwaba subsequently resigned, leaving Keneilwe Constance Maboa, the wife of Karabo Sithole, another first cousin of the Letwaba brothers, as the company’s sole director. When Maboa resigned 17 months later, Kenneth Sithole was appointed as Upbrand’s sole director.

What the bank statements show

The bank statements are for an IAM4GG account opened at Nedbank on 10 January 2017. The account lay dormant for over a year until an amount of R380 was transferred into it to reactivate it on 16 February 2018.

Once again there was no activity on the account and by 25 April 2018 bank charges had reduced the available credit to just R190.55.

The next day the NLC paid R9.1-million into the account, the first of two tranches of the IAM4GG grant. The second tranche of R2,275,000 was paid into the account on 6 July 2018.

Family connections

The application for funding submitted to the NLC listed lawyer Lesley Ramulifho as IAM4GG’s chairperson and Karabo Sithole as secretary.

In other words, money passed from the National Lotteries Commission, of which Letwaba is COO, through IAM4GG, of which Letwaba’s cousin Karabo Sithole is secretary, to Upbrand, of which Kenneth Sithole, cousin of both Karabo Sithole and of Letwaba, is sole director. And the chairman of IAM4GG is Ramulifho, who has already received at least R60 million in Lottery funds, as GroundUp has previously revealed.

Moreover, Phillemon Letwaba signed the grant agreement for the NLC on 16 April 2018.

Where are the promised deliverables?

In its application for funding, IAM4GG said the plan was “to provide infrastructure in order to advance sport, recreation and physical activity in communities across the country”. The project was aimed at sports “transformation” and athletes from “disadvantaged … especially our rural communities”. It would create 60 full-time and 40 part-time jobs and benefit over 16,000 people, according to the application.

GroundUp has not been able to establish where this “infrastructure” is located because the NLC failed to answer our questions. But the commission told GroundUp in a November 2018 statement that the “project work is complete” and the project had been handed over to the local municipality.
The grant allocated R10,440,000 for “capacity building (integrated sports facility)”; R500,000 for “sports equipment and apparel” and R435,000 for administration.

But only five payments in the leaked IAM4GG bank statements appear to be directly connected to the sports facility: R500,000 on 7 May 2018, for “construction sports stadium” and a further four payments for “sports centre” that totalled R22,500. The payments were made on 17, 19 and 20 July 2018. If there were any further payments related to the sports facility, they are not recorded as such on the bank statements.

There were two mystery payments from the IAM4GG account for R5 million on 4 May 2018, and a further R700,000 on 7 July, paid into an account identified only by a number. An amount of R3 million was paid into the same account on 26 January 2018 by Denzhe, an NPO controlled by Ramulifho. This number refers to a Nedbank “investment account”, according to a source at the bank.

Strange payments

However there are other deductions for management fees (R50,000 on 30 April 2018 and R25,000 on 7 May), and deductions to Hush Interiors, an upmarket decor company (R40,000 on 3 May 2018), Bradlows (R19,599.95 on 8 May 2018) and Vaja Products (saunas and steam rooms - R132,000 on 8 May 2018). Within days of the first R9.1 million tranche of the Lottery grant landing in IAM4GG’s account, the first of a series of payments totalling R644,000 were made for “legal drafting”.The payments, ranging from R10,000 to R200,000, were made between 30 April and 30 May 2018.

And, after the second tranche of R2,275,000 was paid on 6 July 2018, a further R373,900 was paid out for “legal drafting” over the next two weeks.

The bank statements also list payments totalling R672,000 that are described as “franchise fee” from the NPO’s bank account.

By 30 June 2018, the Lottery funding was almost exhausted with only R1,708.79 left in the account. But six days later, on 6 July, the account was topped up again with a deposit of R2,275,000 — the second tranche — by the NLC.

However, after a series of payments — including R373,900 for “legal drafting”, R700,000 into the mystery account, R100,000 for “management fees” and R50,000 to a courier company — the account balance was reduced to just R81,706.99 by 14 July, a week after the NLC payment.

Unanswered questions

Neither Ramulifho nor his employee Liesl Moses responded to emailed questions about the project and the information contained in the bank statements.

GroundUp also contacted two people listed as directors of IAM4GG when the organisation was registered with the Department of Social Development in 2012: Thomas Nkuna, deputy chairperson, and Mpho Maphanga, treasurer. Neither responded.

The NLC failed to respond to detailed questions sent to Commissioner Thabang Mampane and spokesman Ndivhuho Mafela.

Instead the NLC’s head of legal affairs, Tsietsi Maselwa, responded by email, noting the “serious allegations”, and claiming to be unaware of most of the information on which we based our questions.

 20 January 2020   By Raymond Joseph


Phillemon Letwaba is suing Raymond Joseph (the author of this article), Nathan Geffen (the editor of GroundUp), and Community Media Trust (the owner of GroundUp) for defamation.

GroundUp is being sued after we exposed dodgy Lottery deals involving millions of rands. Please help fund our defence. You can support us via Givengain, Snapscan, EFT, PayPal or PayFast.

 

© 2020 GroundUp.

South Africa still has a long way to go on the right to food

For most of human history, people had access to food either by producing it themselves, or through trade.
Shutterstock

Fifty-four percent of South Africans are hungry or at risk of hunger. Hunger affects people’s health, as well as their ability to live full and productive lives. That’s why hunger represents a violation of their basic human rights – not only the right to food, but also the rights to dignity, health and education, since all of these are affected by hunger.

Hunger, malnutrition and related illnesses are not evenly spread. There are significant race, class and gender differences. For example, black South Africans are 22 times more likely to be food insecure compared with white South Africans. Food insecurity is defined as not having physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

This unequal distribution indicates a situation of severe food injustice in South Africa. Yet from my research with urban farmers it’s clear that people do not know of the right to food, and don’t see unequal access to nutritious food as an injustice. As a result, questions of hunger are largely absent in South African politics. While there are frequent protests around access to jobs, education, housing, water and electricity, we rarely, if ever, see protests about access to food.

There are international examples of governments taking their obligations seriously with regard to the right to food. In the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, for example, the government has rolled out numerous food and nutrition security programmes to combat hunger. In India, activists used litigation to hold the government accountable, leading to the enactment of the National Food Security Act in 2013, and various anti-hunger programmes such as school meals, subsidised grain distribution and assistance to pregnant women.

South Africans could learn from these examples, and do more.

Food injustice

The concept of food injustice seeks to address issues of equity, fairness and control amid inherent inequality of the food system. Developed by researchers and activists in the US, it is equally relevant in South Africa, where centuries of oppression under settler colonialism and apartheid have created one of the most unequal societies in the world.

One of the drivers of unequal access to food is the way in which the industrial food system works. For example, a few large companies dominate each aspect of the food value chain.

This concentration means that smaller scale producers, processors and retailers are squeezed out. Because the large companies dominate the supply chain, they are able to maximise profits at the expense of small-scale producers, to whom they pay very low prices, and low-income consumers, who can’t afford the marked-up prices in shops.

The system has been normalised to the extent that it is rarely challenged.

In my study with urban farmers I asked participants about the right to food. The majority had never heard of it. Even when I explained the right, it was difficult for them to comprehend how it could work in the context of the current food system.

One woman in Bertrams, Johannesburg, challenged the concept:

A right to eat, but where will we get the food to eat? You’ll go to Spar [supermarket] and say, “I want to eat”, yet you don’t have money to buy food.

When asked if food manufacturers and retailers should help hungry people, another participant in Alexandra, said:

Yeah, I think they must help, but if they’ve got money. Because also they must get something and then they can manage to help people.

This view was expressed by a pensioner struggling to feed her grandchildren. On the other end of the scale might be the CEO of major retailer Shoprite, who earned R100 million (and additional incentives) in 2017 – 1332 times more than employees, who made R75,150.

The idea of food being sold for profit has become entirely normalised. This is despite the fact that for most of human history, people had access to food either by producing (or gathering) it themselves, or through trade. Some of the older participants in the study actually experienced this during their childhoods in rural areas. Their households were largely self-sustaining – growing crops, raising livestock, and sharing or trading with neighbours as needed.

Many of the research participants had monthly household food budgets of around R450 per person per month. At this rate, a healthy diet is simply unaffordable. The Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Household Affordability Index suggests that the cost of a basic nutritious food basket for a family of four is R2,327.17 (or R581.79 per person).

Realising the right to food

Tackling food injustice requires a transformation of the structural inequities of the food system. It needs to ensure that marginalised producers, processors and retailers have an opportunity to earn a decent living. At the same time corporate dominance needs to be addressed.

To break the cycle of poverty and malnutrition, the government also needs to ensure that children have access to sufficient, healthy food. This might entail food provision linked to pre- and post-natal care, as well as provision of healthy meals at early childhood development centres.

It requires providing alternative means to access healthy food. This could be through access to land and water, or through subsidised fresh produce and healthy meals. Programmes such as those in Brazil or in India provide examples of how government interventions (through subsidies and distribution) can improve access to food.

At the most basic level, it requires that South Africans know they have a right to food in the first place.

Eight years ago the then UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter criticised South Africa’s progress on this score and made a number of recommendations for improvement. Sadly, little has changed. It’s time South Africans demanded government action.

Brittany Kesselman, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of the Witwatersrand

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.