The Union Against Hunger (UAH) is undertaking a national month of action leading up to World Hunger Day, May 28, 2026. We have declared 25 – 30 May 2026 Food Justice Week and will organize actions and programmes across the country.
Why?
Millions of people across South Africa continue to go hungry while food prices rise, unemployment deepens, inequality grows, and the constitutional promise of dignity remains unrealized. Across the world, famine and widening insecurity are the foreseeable consequences of America’s unlawful war on Iran. Rising oil-prices means rising transport, fertilizer and food prices.
As we have seen from many submissions made to the ongoing South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) national inquiry into food systems in South Africa- hunger is not accidental; it is political, structural. The government makes policy decisions that choose hunger over well-being. April 27th was Freedom Day, but freedom means little to people who are still not free from hunger. No wonder support for democracy is declining – the Constitution means little if it can’t guarantee such basic needs as the right of everyone to access sufficient food and basic nutrition.
Last week President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the International Panel on Inequality (IPI). Research shows that access to nutritious food is one of the starkest examples of inequality. Ramaphosa said that:
At a domestic level, countries need to be investing in the education and health of their people, prioritising the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable. They need to provide quality public goods and services that improve living conditions and create opportunities.
Laws, policies and regulations need to protect workers, constrain excessive corporate power, create employment, safeguard the environment and ensure that taxation is progressive and redistributive.
We call for the President’s words to be turned into actions, problems into solutions, paralysis into leadership!
For this reason, on Workers Day, 1 May 2026, we launch our World Hunger Day campaign under the theme: “Unionise Against Hunger! Mobilize for sufficient nutritious food!”
Leading up to World Hunger Day, The UAH calls on
- Communities to host dialogues and local hunger hearings, listening sessions to highlight the lived realities of hunger and identify local demands. Share your feelings with the UAH on TikTok and other social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and X. Start planning to make access to food a local government elections issue!
- Peaceful local actions targeting Shoprite-Checkers for its excessive pricing and profiteering; pickets, symbolic trolley actions, empty plate protests.
- Support to the community kitchens that are a lifeline for so many people who form part of our campaign.
Our main national action will take place on 28 May 2026 and include a picket of the Department of Agriculture calling for the urgent finalization of the National Food and Nutrition Security Plan and the releasing of names of the National Food and Nutrition Security Council.
To prepare for these and other actions a Rally Against Rising Food Prices will be convened by the UAH on Saturday 16 May 2026 in Johannesburg (further details to be communicated), bringing together civil society organisations, faith groups, trade unions, student leaders, community kitchens, social justice organisations and campaign partners to harvest ideas, strengthen mobilisation and secure practical commitments for action on World Hunger Day. Hunger is everybody’s issue.
Our campaign objectives are to:
- Galvanise political will to take action to end unacceptable levels of hunger and malnutrition
- Hold both government and the Big Food retailers accountable for hunger.
- Push for affordable prices for essential goods and stronger right to food policies.
- Build community power to fight for access to sufficient food and basic nutrition across provinces.
- Strengthen local and provincial organizing structures of the Union Against Hunger.
Together, we can ensure that hunger is no longer treated as normal. An injury to one is an injury to all.
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