MEDIA RELEASE
For Immediate Release
SU launches major Policy Brief and hosts Roundtable on Hunger as a Constitutional Justice Crisis Die Stal, Coetzenburg, Stellenbosch – 30 May 2025
Stellenbosch University’s (SU) Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), in collaboration with the Centre for the Advancement of Social Impact and Transformation (CASIT), convened a high-level Roundtable and launched a major new Policy Brief on Social Justice, Hunger and the Constitution, calling for urgent legal, policy and governance reforms to address hunger as one of South Africa’s most visible and persistent social justice failures. The event was expertly facilitated by Candice Egan, Fundraiser: Corporate and Individual Donor Bursaries, BEE & SETAs at SU, who plays a key part in mobilising donor partnerships to secure bursaries, food assistance and support services for students – helping to break down financial barriers and create pathways for student success.
The policy brief reframes hunger in South Africa as far more than a development or welfare issue – instead positioning it as a constitutional social justice imperative that strikes at the heart of human dignity, equality, freedom and the state’s binding legal obligations. Despite South Africa’s globally admired Constitution, significant food availability and multiple social assistance programmes, which include access to food and nutrition assistance, Stats SA reports that since 2021, over 2.1 million households – representing 11.6% of the population – remain trapped in chronic food insecurity. The situation has since worsened.
Delivering reflections on the policy brief, Prof Thuli Madonsela, Director of the Centre for Social Justice and chief architect of the initiative, emphasised that ending hunger is not a matter of charity or goodwill, but of constitutional compliance. “Section 27 of the Constitution and South Africa’s international obligations leave no doubt: access to sufficient food is not an aspirational goal but a fundamental right,” she said. “When millions go hungry, it is a breach of legal duty and a betrayal of the promise of our constitutional democracy. Ending hunger is not an act of benevolence; it is an act of justice long overdue.”
Madonsela further stressed that hunger is deeply intersectional, disproportionately affecting women, children, persons with disabilities, the elderly, refugees, students and those living in poverty – compounding existing structural inequalities rooted in race, gender, geography and historical exclusion. She opined that while hunger and nutrition deficiency are closely linked to barriers pertaining to access to land, agriculture and climate change, the majority of hungry and nutrition starved people are so deprived not due to lack of physical access to food but inability to pay for food pointing to lack of economic access to food.
Presenting key findings and an overview of the CSJ Policy Brief on Social Justice, Hunger and the Constitution, Dr Marna Lourens, CSJ Project Manager and Researcher, noted that South Africa’s food insecurity crisis reflects a deeper failure of constitutional governance, policy coherence and structural accountability. Lourens further spotlighted the fact that, mindful of the right to food is, like all rights subject to the principle of subsidiarity, clarity was yet to be established regarding who the duty bearer was for certain food insecure groups. This includes the so-called “missing middle students” who study while battling hunger and malnutrition.
Amongst proposals for constitutional reform, Thembalethu Seyisi, CSJ Researcher for Law Reform, Data Interface and Outreach, presented recommendations calling for the explicit inclusion of “social justice” within South Africa’s constitutional framework itself. “It is time that social justice becomes a formal, guiding principle in our Constitution, embedded in both law and policy design. Constitutional amendments that institutionalise social justice as a core evaluative lens would strengthen government's duty to proactively address systemic inequalities, including hunger, through mandatory predictive Social Justice Impact Assessments.”
The policy brief, developed through extensive consultations with policymakers, academics, hunger relief organisations, judicial representatives, student leaders and civil society organisations, calls for:
- Enactment of framework legislation to operationalise the right to food, as enshrined in Section 27 of the Constitution.
- Embedding Social Justice Impact Assessments (SIAM) into government decision-making to prevent policies from perpetuating inequality.
- Strengthened cross-sector coordination among government departments, private sector and civil society actors.
- Addressing food price inflation, land insecurity, food waste and unfair market practices that systematically exclude vulnerable groups.
- Expanding social protection programmes, including the consideration of a Universal Basic Income Grant modelled on international best practice.
The Roundtable also highlighted the unique policy window presented by the National Food and Nutrition Security Plan (2025–2029), urging government to embed rights-based and social justice frameworks into food security planning. The final push of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and South Africa’s G20 presidency whose themes are: Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability, were also highlighted as opportunities for catalytic action on ending hunger as a social justice matter.
Throughout the event, the principle of Ubuntu – “I am because we are” – was invoked to underscore the collective responsibility shared by state and society. The collective responsibility paradigm is also informed by UN-CESCR General Comment 12, which recognises different proportionate roles for the state and civil society regarding respecting, protecting and fulfilling the right to food and freedom from hunger.
As Thulani Hlatswayo, Coordinator of the Unit for Student Governance at SU, concluded: “Hunger will not end through isolated interventions. It will end when we, as a nation, accept that denying people food is a violation of their rights and act accordingly.”
The policy brief will be submitted to multiple government ministries as a direct call to action. Informally accepting a copy for parliament at the event, Brent Herron MP, argued that it is clear that when no one can provide food for those unable to provide for themselves, the Constitution places a duty on government to step in and provide.
As South Africa enters its fourth decade of democracy, the CSJ challenges the nation to close the gap between the constitutional promise and lived reality – and to treat hunger not as a development target, but as an urgent legal, moral and constitutional social justice imperative.
Issued by: Centre for Social Justice, Stellenbosch University
For media enquiries: mlourens@sun.ac.za / tseyisi@sun.ac.za