The mission to end stunting

The Learning Lunch podcast explores ideas, approaches and social innovations – creating opportunity for non-profit organisations’ teams to discover what others are learning and space to reflect on what these insights might mean for their own strategy and programme implementation.

Stunting is more than a height problem — it’s a sign that something deeper is wrong in society. Despite being an upper-middle-income country, South Africa ranks among 34 countries that make up 90% of the world’s stunted children — among them are countries that have been set back by civil unrest and war.

In South Africa, nearly three in 10 children under the age of five are too short for their age, because of chronic malnutrition, often beginning in the womb, and made worse by repeated infections and a weakened immune system. Stunting affects how a child’s body and brain develop.

High rates of poverty and food insecurity are to blame, compounded by rising food prices and inadequate access to basic services — all of which affect stunting. This tells us that the problem is multi-layered, and no single intervention is going to drastically reduce our stunting rate. Instead, we need a national plan of action — a mission to tackle stunting.

In this podcast, we talk about why stunting is not an individual problem but a societal issue that we need to confront with a national mission-driven approach. We talk to Liezel Engelbrecht – a dietician and Nutrition lead for the Hold My Hand Accelerator, and Armaan Ujra, Innovation Director at DGMT supporting early childhood development.

Liezel Engelbrecht is Nutrition Lead at the Hold My Hand Accelerator working closely with the Presidency on South Africa’s mission to end stunting. She is a registered dietitian with a background in journalism. She has contributed across government, the NGO sector, academia, and global organisations, supporting policy, research, and large-scale nutrition programmes.

Armaan Ujra is an Innovation Director at DGMT, where his work focuses on strengthening the systems, relationships and community conditions that help young children thrive. His portfolio spans nutrition, early learning, child connectedness and the scaling of quality early childhood development in South Africa.A medical doctor with experience in child and adolescent HIV, public health and cross-sector development, Armaan brings a systems lens to advancing children’s wellbeing—connecting health, social and environmental priorities to support sustained change for children and families.