What we are reading...

This brief presents findings from programs in Bhutan, Rwanda, Serbia and Zambia. It explains how these parenting interventions are scaled examining enablers, barriers, delivery quality, government adoption, workforce roles, and what works for sustainable expansion of early childhood support.

This policy brief is an accountability checklist for implementing policy commitments to enable parent-led nurturing care from birth to lay the foundations for inclusive, human capital development.

This UNICEF‑led framework outlines a global vision for building strong, coordinated systems that support parents and caregivers throughout children’s lives. It emphasizes a multisectoral, evidence‑based approach to help countries integrate parenting support into health, education, social protection and community services, aiming to improve child well‑being and equity worldwide.

This report provides practical advice for policymakers and programme designers on how to develop, deliver and scale early childhood parenting interventions. It outlines evidence-based principles, key components, implementation strategies, monitoring tools and contextual considerations to improve child development outcomes through supportive parenting practices and early learning environments.

This plan prioritises enabling all South African children to read for meaning by age ten, emphasising African languages, teacher development, quality reading materials and parent/community engagement. It proposes literacy policy reform, culturally relevant learning resources, structured teacher training, and monitoring to improve foundational reading outcomes nationwide by 2030.

This guide is to help caregivers apply for a child grant even if the child lacks a birth certificate or the caregiver has no ID. It simplifies the process, clarifies requirements, and supports access to essential social assistance for vulnerable families.

This report investigates gaps in maternity and parental benefits for self‑employed workers, especially those in the informal economy. It finds current systems exclude self‑employed parents from social protection, worsening inequality and limiting women’s economic participation. The report explores legal and policy shortcomings, South Africa’s constitutional and international obligations, and proposes how and who should extend maternity and parental benefits to self‑employed workers.

This is a policy brief showing that switching from iron and folic acid to multiple micronutrient supplements in pregnancy is highly cost‑effective in South Africa. It improves perinatal outcomes, including reduced low birthweight, preterm births, and stillbirths, while offering strong economic value and supporting evidence‑based policymaking.

This is an evidence-based article explaining how prenatal multiple micronutrient supplementation (MMS) improves pregnancy and newborn outcomes compared with iron-folic acid alone. It summarises research showing MMS reduces low birthweight, preterm births and stillbirths, emphasises early and sustained intake during pregnancy, and advocates for broader policy adoption to support healthier infant growth.

This is a summary of a technical brief and FAQ outlining quality standards for UNIMMAP multiple micronutrient supplements. It explains requirements for manufacturing, testing, packaging, and regulatory compliance, helping ensure safe, effective, and consistent products while guiding countries, suppliers, and programmes in maintaining high-quality maternal nutrition interventions.

This resource answers common questions national decision‑makers have about introducing and scaling multiple micronutrient supplementation (MMS) programmes for pregnant women. It explains practical considerations, evidence, policy issues and challenges countries face as they transition from iron‑folic acid to MMS in antenatal care. The FAQ aims to inform strategy, planning and advocacy to improve maternal nutrition outcomes.

This 2024 guidance explains how implementation science (IS) can help countries introduce and scale up antenatal multiple micronutrient supplementation (MMS) programs. It complements a global MMS scale‑up framework by detailing why and how IS can inform policy, delivery, monitoring, and adaptation of MMS intervention across phases of introduction and expansion.

This report argues that anaemia is a major but overlooked cause of maternal deaths, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Drawing on the WOMAN-2 study, it shows severe anaemia greatly increases risks of postpartum haemorrhage, stillbirth, and death, urging stronger prevention, screening, and treatment efforts.

This is an advocacy article explaining why multiple micronutrient supplements (MMS) which improve maternal and newborn outcomes more than iron‑folic acid alone should be reintroduced into South Africa’s Essential Medicines List. It reviews evidence on birth outcomes and cost‑effectiveness, outlines programmatic and policy barriers, and offers strategic recommendations to support MMS policy adoption and integration into antenatal care.

This framework outlines a multisectoral approach to accelerate global anaemia reduction, recognising anaemia’s complex causes beyond iron deficiency. It promotes comprehensive prevention, diagnosis and management strategies integrated into primary health care and broader social systems. The document calls for strengthened leadership, data use, cross-sector collaboration, and investment to improve outcomes, especially for women, adolescent girls and children in low- and middle-income countries

This official guideline sets out the desired standard of care for pregnant women and newborns in South Africa, offering evidence-based recommendations for antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care. It supports clinicians to provide safe, respectful, integrated maternal and perinatal services adapted to local clinical settings.

This working paper uses Bayesian meta-analysis to combine evidence from 115 studies of 72 unconditional cash transfer (UCT) programs in low- and middle-income countries. It finds strong positive effects on consumption, income, school enrollment, food security, assets, and child growth, and explores hypotheses about labor supply, targeting, and program design.

This report highlights large-scale food fortification as a highly cost-effective strategy to reduce global micronutrient deficiencies. It shows current programmes prevent billions of nutrient gaps annually but have untapped potential. Expanding coverage, improving compliance, and strengthening policies could significantly increase impact, reaching more vulnerable populations worldwide.

This report presents evidence that food insecurity in South Africa is high, persistent and structural. It shows rising food insecurity from 2019–2023, with many households including those with children worried about food, skipping meals, or going without food. Rising food prices, unemployment and inadequate safety nets drive hardship. The report calls for targeted, child‑focused nutrition and food support policies.

The Right to Foods activity book explains the human right to adequate, nutritious food in a child‑friendly way, showing how food choices, affordability and access affect diets. It uses fun activities and stories to teach young people about global food systems, challenges like hunger and malnutrition, and how everyone can help build fair, healthy, sustainable food systems where no one is left behind.

This report shows that global child obesity has surpassed underweight for the first time, driven by widespread availability and marketing of ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks. It shows rising overweight rates, especially in low- and middle-income countries, and calls for stronger regulation, healthier food environments, improved labelling, and policies that make nutritious foods affordable and accessible.

This report presents the South African Food Security Index 2025, commissioned by Shoprite and compiled by Stellenbosch University researchers. It shows a modest improvement in national food security with the index rising from 44.9 in 2023 to about 56.4 in 2024 but highlights ongoing hunger, uneven dietary diversity and persistent food insecurity across provinces. Key drivers include food affordability, access, diet variety and stability, with female‑headed households disproportionately affected.

This is a working paper outlining international evidence on child stunting to guide policy in South Africa. It highlights causes such as inadequate diets, infections and poor stimulation, and recommends evidence‑based actions like complementary feeding education, nutrient supplements for young children, improved food environments, supportive policies, and better data to reduce high national stunting rates.

This policy brief outlines the extended global nutrition targets to 2030 after Member States recognised that original 2025 goals were off track. It explains renewed commitments, key indicators and operational targets such as reducing child stunting and anaemia, lowering low birth weight, increasing exclusive breastfeeding, and addressing wasting and childhood overweight to guide countries’ nutrition action plans.

This document summarises what the stunting special issue papers contained in Development Southern Africa contribute to our understanding of stunting and what can be done to address it. It highlights key research gaps — particularly the need for local evidence on the role of in utero alcohol exposure, maternal health, environmental health and gut health — to match important international findings.

The article argues that structural inequality leaves pregnant women and their babies vulnerable to poverty, malnutrition, and stunting and that South Africa’s social protection system still excludes pregnant women. It makes a case for a Maternal Support Grant, outlining its social justice, health, and economic benefits, and features expert insights on why supporting expectant mothers is crucial for improved child development and long‑term societal outcomes.

This is a research preprint reporting a South African neuroimaging study showing that children aged 6–7 born to mothers who were anaemic during pregnancy have persistently smaller brain volumes (corpus callosum and caudate nucleus) compared with those whose mothers were not anaemic. It highlights long‑term neurodevelopmental effects of antenatal anaemia.

This piece reports that South Africa lacks comprehensive administrative data on children under five, leaving an estimated ~6 million young children “invisible” to government tracking systems. This data gap undermines planning for early learning, nutrition and development, and complicates access to services like grants and preschool. It also highlights poor early childhood outcomes and calls for integrated data systems and stronger interventions.

The article explains that fortifying staple foods like pap (maize meal) and bread with essential vitamins and minerals can help reduce South Africa’s “hidden hunger.” Although mandatory fortification exists, weak compliance and monitoring undermine its impact, so stronger enforcement and updated regulations are needed.

This paper argues that mainstream early childhood development (ECD) initiatives often overlook young children with developmental disabilities, especially in low- and middle-income countries. It advocates for specialized, family-centered early childhood intervention (Fc-ECI) that begins soon after birth and involves families as active partners, using evidence and a South African case study to show its benefits