Nutrition and Food Security for Children Under 5 – Summary

A PER of government’s efforts to improve nutrition for children below the age of five was commissioned to understand the cost and impact of the many programmes that contribute to this goal. However, a number of challenges emerged in conducting this PER which, collectively made it impossible to assess properly the extent of public spending on child nutrition, much less its effectiveness. From the available information, it is evident that the largest single government programme addressing child malnutrition is the Child Support Grant. Notwithstanding some of the challenges of accessing data, a costing model was developed, on the basis of which it is possible to estimate what it would cost to implement the INS based on a range of variables. The PER estimates that government needs to spend about R13.1 billion a year on interventions to address malnutrition among young children.