Cape Town – The Community Chest has joined
forces with the Southern Africa
Food Labin launching a publication
reflecting on the impact of the
Covid-19 pandemic on hunger and
food security.
Titled “World Hunger Day 2020
Challenging False Narratives in a
Global Crisis: Reflections on Human
Rights, Inequality and Securing Food
Systems”, the publication forms
part of marking International World
Hunger Day today.
Reflecting on human rights,
equality and securing food
systems, the compilation of papers
was written by academic, business
and community experts on food
systems and security from South
Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and the
US.
The papers provide insight and
recommendations including how we
build new food systems and provide
a sense of what it will take to build
them.
The writers found that the
pandemic had exposed the
inadequacy of existing governance
processes and structures; the
right to food – as enshrined in
the Constitution – was a fallacy;
geographic location and income
were directly linked to food
sources; there was a need for better
communication and collaboration
between the government, civil
society and the people.
They concluded that there was a
need to reinvent food security in a
post-Covid-19 South Africa.
Community Chest chief
executive Lorenzo Davids said: “In
a time of the pandemic crisis and
with the president’s Freedom Day
call to South Africans to invest in
a new society, a new consciousness
and a new economy, we should
now begin to ask ourselves a
series of deep questions about our
developmental trajectory, and in
particular in relation to food security
for vulnerable communities.
“Have we been wrong about our
strategies about poverty eradication,
poverty elimination and poverty
reduction? Have we been asking the
right questions about how to engage
the poorest 31million citizens about
a more food-, health- and education-secure future?”
The publication is co-edited by
Southern Africa Food Lab director
Professor Scott Drimie and Zenariah
Barends, Community Chest head of
the Sediba Global Partnership Office.
Barends said: “While Covid-19
has not been the reason, it has
exacerbated and starkly illuminated
the food security crisis South Africa
and the world already faced.”
Drimie added: “The collaboration
with Community Chest to make
sense of the disruption of the food
system during Covid-19 has exposed
the structural inequalities and fault
lines of our society.
“There is clearly a need to
respond immediately to hunger, to
facilitate connections across our
joint networks and to catalyse
action that supports sustained access
to good nutrition in vulnerable
communities beyond the Covid-19
pandemic.”