Child rights organizations, healthcare specialists, and early childhood development advocates have positively received the publication of the National Strategy for Accelerating Action for Children (NSAAC). They believe this document provides an important roadmap for improving the well-being of children and adolescents.
However, experts warned that the success of this strategy will depend on effective implementation, ensuring consistent funding, and more deeply integrating issues of child mental health and climate change resilience into all government programs.
NSAAC, published by the Department of Social Development after approval by the Cabinet, establishes a national framework for accelerating progress for children. The strategy focuses on ten strategic priorities aimed at reducing child poverty and malnutrition, improving maternal and child health, strengthening early development, preventing child abuse, and supporting adolescent well-being.
The strategy notes that despite significant progress in the lives of children in South Africa since 1994, many achievements are under pressure due to the Covid-19 pandemic and limited financial resources. It emphasizes that solving children's problems requires not only government efforts but also a 'whole-of-government and whole-of-society' approach, uniting the state, civil society, labor unions, business, and local communities.
The document argues that simply maintaining existing programs is insufficient to reverse growing inequality and poor development indicators, thus proposing a series of catalytic measures and strengthening accountability mechanisms to accelerate progress within the Fifth National Plan of Action for Children.
The strategy was developed through an extensive consultation process involving government departments, researchers, development partners, civil society organizations, as well as children and adolescents themselves. DG Murray Trust, one of the organizations involved in its creation, called the publication an important milestone reflecting a general commitment to putting children at the center of national development.
Among the supporters of the strategy is Grow Great, which characterized it as an important step toward improving outcomes in the first 1000 days of a child's life. Nicola Stoffberg, Executive Director of Grow Great, stated: 'This is an important and long-awaited commitment from the government. In South Africa, there is no shortage of good policies for children; what was missing was coordinated implementation, sustainable investment, and accountability.'
Stoffberg noted that the strategy aligns closely with the Nurturing Care Framework, recognizing that child development depends on nutrition, health, responsive care, safety, and early learning opportunities. She expressed satisfaction with the commitments to strengthen maternal and child health services, support community health workers, and reduce child stunting.
NSAAC proposes several nutrition-focused measures, including restoring the child grant to the food poverty line for young children, introducing a maternity grant, strengthening breastfeeding support, improving early detection of malnutrition, and tightening regulations on the marketing of infant formulas and ultra-processed foods.
Stoffberg emphasized that these commitments recognize the pregnancy period and the first two years of life as the best opportunity to improve lifelong health and development for children. She added that 'reducing stunting is not just a health goal; it is an investment in South Africa's future workforce, educational outcomes, and economic growth.'
Healthy Living Alliance (HEALA) also supported the strategy's emphasis on improving child nutrition. Angelika Kruger, Advocacy Manager at HEALA, stated that the organization supports the commitments to regulate the marketing of unhealthy food and infant formulas while making nutritious food more accessible. Nevertheless, she insisted that implementation must include the final approval of warning label rules on the front of packaging for high-sugar, high-salt, and high-saturated-fat products.
Kruger stressed that 'children can be protected with simple interventions, such as a warning label system on packaging,' noting that ongoing delays allowed unhealthy products to remain insufficiently regulated.
Although mental health is recognized throughout the strategy through commitments to strengthening developmental screening, referral pathways, and integrated child and adolescent health services, pediatrician-psychiatrist Alicia Porter, affiliated with the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG), expressed a wish for psychological well-being to be more purposefully included across the entire structure.
Porter stated that 'this strategy is an important opportunity to change not only what we do for children but also how we think about children.' She welcomed the strategy's recognition of the dependence of child well-being on the collaboration of health, education, families, and communities, but noted that South Africa must transition from crisis intervention to prevention and earlier identification of developmental and behavioral issues.
She said: 'One of the biggest shifts we need to make is moving from the question: 'What is wrong with this child?' to the question: 'What is this child trying to tell us?''. Porter suggested that children's behavior often signals distress long before they acquire the language to explain it, and proposed that emotional and developmental well-being should ultimately be tracked alongside physical health using tools like the Health Journey Book.
She also called for increased investment in parents, teachers, community health workers, and primary healthcare providers, arguing that supporting caregivers is one of the most effective ways to improve children's mental health.
Implementation concerns were also raised by the early childhood development organization Singakwenza. Julie May, Founder and Director, noted that the strategy identified many correct priorities but questioned whether existing state structures are ready to ensure their execution. She stated: 'The strategy, like most South African policies, looks very good on paper.'
May pointed out that responsibility for young children remains fragmented across the Departments of Health, Basic Education, and Social Development, which hinders coordination. She emphasized the need for a coordinated governmental approach to children.
NSAAC also acknowledges that improving child outcomes requires closer interdepartmental cooperation and proposes new governance mechanisms, including enhanced political oversight, improved monitoring, and formal partnership with civil society through a national 'Accelerator' designed to support implementation.
Environmental health and climate change resilience were also reflected in responses to the strategy. While NSAAC includes measures to combat lead poisoning, air pollution, environmental monitoring, and child participation in environmental decision-making, the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) stated that climate change resilience must be more explicitly integrated into the implementation process due to its growing impact on child well-being.
Tatenda Muponde, a lawyer at CER's Advocacy and Training Program, noted that climate change already affects children's nutrition, health, education, and safety. She said: 'The strategy rightly prioritizes reducing child poverty, ending stunting, and preventing violence. However, its limited attention to climate change and environmental health creates a significant policy gap.'
Muponde added that droughts, floods, and extreme weather exacerbate food insecurity, damage schools, and increase children's vulnerability to disease, displacement, and protection risks. She concluded that integrating climate-resilient child protection into implementation—including climate-resilient schools and early childhood centers, enhancing disaster preparedness, and climate-sensitive health services—would better protect children's rights and well-being.
