Ramaphosa declares war on alcohol abuse, while entity studying alcohol-related harms faces closure

The Foundation for Alcohol Related Research (Farr), an organisation that has worked to reduce birth defects caused by alcohol consumption during pregnancy since it was founded almost 30 years ago, is set to close its doors by 31 May 2026.

Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is a major but under-acknowledged concern in the country. While the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that fewer than 1% of individuals are affected by FASD globally, South Africa’s FASD prevalence rate is estimated to stand at 11%, the highest in the world.

However, Dr Leana Olivier, CEO of Farr, told Daily Maverick in an interview that prevalence rates can be much higher within specific communities.

“We’ve worked in areas where the [FASD] prevalence rates were as high as 28.2%, and rates around that. So, it’s extremely high – it’s the highest reported in the world,” she said.

The closure is linked to a decline in funding, particularly for the research portion of the nonprofit’s operations. It marks a “profound loss” for the alcohol harms reduction sector, according to activists and experts working in the space.

Farr’s work is primarily geared towards monitoring and FASDs in provinces across the country. FASDs involve permanent and irreversible damage to a developing foetus by alcohol exposure during pregnancy, and are “the most common preventable form of mental and physical disability”, according to the organisation.

The winding down of Farr’s operations comes at a time when alcohol harms are in the limelight, after President Cyril Ramaphosa flagged excessive alcohol consumption as a “major contributor” to child stunting in his State of the Nation Address for 2026.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Ramaphosa doubles down on ending child stunting by 2030

The President committed to calling on provincial governments to strengthen the regulation of alcohol through measures such as limiting the density of liquor outlets and restricting trading hours. He noted that the national government would be proposing strategies to curb excessive alcohol use.

The fight for funding

When Farr was founded in 1997, it was first and foremost a research organisation, with investigations focused on areas in the Western Cape. Over time, its operations not only expanded to other provinces – Free State, Gauteng, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape – but also to encompass awareness, prevention and management strategies.

Olivier said that when she came on board in 2005, she felt ethically bound to provide not only research, but active interventions.

“Over the years, we’ve completed 25 community projects in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Free State and Gauteng,” she said.

“During the last couple of years, we’ve had 16 community centres and community projects going. So, once we do the research in an area and identify the prevalence rate, then we start doing the awareness [and] prevention there, and we employ people from that community then to work in our centres.”

The organisation also established a training academy for professionals involved in the fight against FASD, including doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, dieticians and social workers.

However, it has become increasingly difficult for Farr to secure funding, particularly for its research projects.

“Last year, we had to make a decision about whether we should drop the research part, or scale down on that. […] Because we use the research results to develop our evidence-based intervention programmes, research is extremely important for us,” Olivier said.

“The board then decided that maybe it was time to call it a day because over the years, we’ve published on the work that we have done, and to date, we’ve published 75 peer [-reviewed] journal articles in international journals. That’s quite a lot, especially for an NGO.”

Since the decision to close Farr was taken in April 2025, the organisation has been gradually terminating its community initiatives. The last four projects will close at the end of March 2026, followed by an official shutdown of the organisation in May.

The reality is that there are few organisations that provide funding for this type of research, according to Olivier. This, coupled with factors such as uncertainty about the rand and geopolitical concerns, have made it difficult for funders to commit to long-term support.

Maurice Smithers, office bearer at Working for an Alcohol-Safer South Africa, said that securing funding for organisations in the alcohol harm reduction sector is very challenging, with a limited number of stakeholders operating in the space.

He also noted the limited understanding of FASDs and their harms in broader society.

“I think that across society, generally, most people are not even aware of what it is, and not aware of quite how serious it is in terms of the impact on babies that are born with FASD and the permanent damage that is done. […] You would think that, particularly with such a sensitive issue as pregnancy and babies, it would be taken more seriously,” he said.

Filling the gap

The gap that will be left by Farr’s closure will be tough to fill – a reality that Olivier described as “heartbreaking” for those who form part of the organisation. She was particularly concerned about the void that would be left when it came to research and FASD diagnostic services.

Olivier said that Farr is the only NGO currently equipped to provide FASD diagnoses in South Africa. The complex process has three tiers:

• A medical examination by a person trained in FASD dysmorphology and how to identify it;
• An in-depth interview with the biological mother to exclude any other occurrences prenatally, during labour or postnatally that could have caused brain damage to the child; and
• A psychological test battery that the child needs to complete to exclude other conditions that might be confused with FASD.

“Just from an alcohol harm reduction perspective, [Farr] is quite an essential public health institution,” said Kashiefa Ancer, campaign lead for Rethink Your Drink, an alcohol harms reduction campaign under the DG Murray Trust. “They have really led research and our understanding of foetal alcohol spectrum disorders in South Africa. Without Farr, we would not have a concept of what FASD looks like in our country at all,” she said.

“This was a really stunning approach, because they were really saying foetal alcohol spectrum disorder is not the problem of an individual mom or her family, but it really is a community issue.”

Ancer noted that Farr had “held space for communities”, providing programmes that gave mothers a place to go for antenatal support. These services were extended to everyone in communities, not only those people who were at risk of having children with FASD.

“This was a really stunning approach, because they were really saying foetal alcohol spectrum disorder is not the problem of an individual mom or her family, but it really is a community issue,” she said.

“They really took away the shame of FASD in the communities that they work in, and really opened up the door for so many people to get help, to get education, [and] create a sense of community and connection.”

Dr Charles Parry, chief specialist scientist and former director of the Mental Health, Alcohol, Substance Use and Tobacco Research Unit at the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), said that the leadership of Olivier and her team at Farr deserved national recognition.

“While I did not always agree with Farr’s receipt of funding from the alcohol industry, its closure is a profound loss for South Africa, a country with some of the highest levels of alcohol-affected pregnancies globally. Farr’s reach into communities across multiple provinces, its delivery of essential services and its contributions to research on foetal alcohol spectrum disorders were substantial. That such an organisation has been forced to close due to funding constraints is frankly tragic,” he said.

According to Smithers, while other organisations, such as the SAMRC, would continue doing research into FASD, the loss of Farr is challenging as it is the one organisation that focuses exclusively on this issue.

Limited government intervention

Part of the problem when it comes to tackling FASD is a lack of interest from the government to prioritise the issue, according to Olivier. She highlighted the desperate need for prevention services across the departments of Health, Education and Social Development in South Africa.

Olivier acknowledged that there were some programmes in the departments of Health and Social Development that intersected with maternal substance use, but argued that these often lacked a focus on FASD or the substantive support needed to succeed.

“Our services in our country are severely lacking because [FASD] is not really formally acknowledged as a problem.”

“I know there are so many challenges, but the reality is that we’re sitting with this absolutely big problem which is affecting not only the individual, but his or her whole family, and quite often the individual affected with FASD cannot function totally independently,” she said.

“Our services in our country are severely lacking because [FASD] is not really formally acknowledged as a problem.”

Ancer said a push for more robust public policy concerning alcohol harms will be needed in the wake of Farr’s closure, adding that it is clear that the work to monitor and tackle FASD cannot not be held within civil society or the private sector alone.

“I think we are going to need to take a closer look and say, ‘What can we do from a public policy perspective to command coordinated action to reduce alcohol-related harm?’, so that should an organisation, a research institution no longer be able to continue its work, gaps like this don’t need to be filled,” she said.

When Daily Maverick reached out to the Department of Social Development about the shutdown of Farr, spokesperson Sandy Godlwana said that its closure would deprive the social development sector of important recent research on the impact of alcohol on women’s health.

“The potential closure of Farr, similar to the challenges faced by other welfare organisations, would impact the specialised services these organisations provide, particularly in FASD research and advocacy. As the department relies on external research institutions for current data to inform evidence-based interventions, we recognise the importance of these contributions. Should the need arise, the department will explore alternative avenues to ensure the continued acquisition of necessary data,” Godlwana said. DM

Tamsin Metelerkamp is the Children’s Reporter at Daily Maverick. The creation of this role was made possible with the support of the DG Murray Trust.