Food insecurity in South Western Zimbabwe: the vulnerability of primary school children in Matobo District.
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Date
2019
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Abstract
While the capacity and resources in the world are sufficient to ensure adequate and nutritious food for everyone (Ignowski, 2012; Sharma et al., 2016), worldwide household food insecurity has risen amongst the low income population who are significantly more vulnerable to the health and environmental risks posed by climate change and socio-economic factors. This has triggered nutrition problems and health challenges amongst children due to increased hunger. There is a plethora of studies on food insecurity in rural and urban areas in general in Zimbabwe but less work has focused on children’s vulnerability to food insecurity. The purpose of this study was to explore children’s vulnerability to food insecurity in primary schools of south western Zimbabwe, a drought prone area, through the lens of their teachers and parents. A case study of six primary schools was sampled in the Matobo district. Twelve school administrators and eighteen teachers were interviewed and there were six focus group discussions with parents of vulnerable children. The framework for this study is based on Amartya Sen’s (1981) ‘entitlement approach’ that food insecurity is a result of people not having enough command over food. The study revealed that there were social and physical effects of food insecurity that negatively affect children and their learning. Learners are vulnerable to food insecurity as a result of social, economic and environmental conditions. Although supplementary feeding programmes have been implemented to curb the effects of food insecurity, the strategy is less effective due to a shortage of resources to provide nutritious diets to the learners and it is only learners in lower grades who access food. Some schools are yet to implement supplementary feeding programmes that address the nutrient needs of the learners, albeit some schools have managed to source donors that are supplying nutritious foods for all their learners. Most participants recommended a nutrient rich feeding programme that caters for the whole school and the involvement of various stakeholders in order to access enough resources to address learners’ vulnerability to food insecurity amongst in primary schools in Matobo district.
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Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.