FAO Members in Latin America and Caribbean discuss priorities in fighting hunger and poverty

Ministers from around Latin America and the Caribbean region gathered in Brazil’s capital Wednesday to decide on and outline priority actions for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and its regional partners for the next two years.

The region has been a standout performer in reducing food insecurity over the past few years, with more than 6 million fewer people experiencing hunger in 2024 compared to 2020, but progress has not been even and challenges persist, especially in terms of the affordability of healthy diets.

“This region has the tools, the talent, and the tenacity to transform challenges into opportunities,” FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said in remarks inaugurating the 39th Session of the FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean. He hailed the measurable progress in tackling hunger, noting they incorporated extraordinary policies and successful cross-sectoral and cross-institutional coordination.

He particularly applauded Brazil, the host country of the conference, for its casting of the fight against hunger as a moral responsibility, commending President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvafor his commitment and global leadership in this area.

“Everybody has the right to have a breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. It is possible to achieve that,” the President said, insisting that food insecurity is not due to unpredictable events but to lack of political will. Too often the vulnerable and hungry are “invisible to the bureaucratic gaze” of those responsible to solving such basic problems, he said. He also commended FAO for its active role in combating hunger.

Four countries in the region - Brazil, Costa Rica, Guyana and Uruguay - report a prevalence of undernourishment, the key metric for what is known as FAO’s “Hunger Map”, below 2.5 percent of the population, Qu said, adding that three more – Chile, Dominican Republic and Mexico - are on track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 or “zero hunger” by 2030.

Hailing that achievement as extraordinary, Qu emphasized that food prices, fiscal capacities, reduced development financing and geopolitical tensions, and increasing intensity and frequency of climate events are all compounding the increasingly complex environment in which agrifood systems in the region and around the world are operating.

“The question before us is practical,”” he said. “How do we protect these results while strengthening our ability to manage rising uncertainty?

”A high-level special event later Wednesday on “Effective policies and programmes in the region to eradicate hunger and poverty, and reduce poverty” will focus the region’s policy makers on what works and what needs to be done.

Some countries in the region were able to mitigate food price increase on vulnerable households through special measures by ramping up social protection programmes or promoted shorter, local supply chains to protect consumer access to basic needs.

Other keystone events during the three-day Conference include a ministerial roundtable on reversing the slowdown in agricultural productivity gains in the region, another on the drivers, triggers and strategies for transforming agrifood systems to counter a trend of deindustrialization that is hampering value-adding opportunities, and one on policy pathways to sustainable agriculture and forestry for climate-resilient development in a region where droughts can impose hefty costs on rural farmers.

There will also be a high-level special event on how FAO’s Hand-in-Hand Initiative, which has structured nearly $3 billion in investable projects in the region, is an innovative way to increase financing for inclusivity and resilience.

The Director-General’s message

Qu emphasized the importance of institutional evolution, rather than incremental adjustments, in addressing a period of structural change.

Noting that agrifood systems support more than 100 million livelihoods in the region, he stressed the strategic value increasing resilience and  inclusive approaches. Focusing on productive capacity based in science and technology as a pillar of resilience allows for market to work more efficiently, protects rural incomes and eases social pressures, he said.

“Supporting farmers during crises accelerates recovery and reduces the risk of repeated vulnerability,” he added.

The Director-General also called for integrating policy responses across resilience and development dimensions, with supporting the most vulnerable through social protection will reduce fragmentation and increases long-term sustainable impact.

And lastly, Qu said that, with development finance becoming more selective, credibility is the lodestar for institutional performance. Timing, coordination and cost-effectiveness are central to maintaining trust in a time of constrained public budgets and increased engagement with private investments that require confidence and predictability, he said.

“Today we are not here to discuss problems,” Qu told the ministers. “We are here to accelerate solutions – to turn these challenges into opportunities for all.”

The agenda

The Regional Conference will determine priorities that Members intend to pursue for the next biennium and beyond under FAO’s Strategic Framework, Medium-Term Plan and country programming frameworks.

Other key themes in this round are sustainable management of water and soils, and the importance of the One Health approach, which focuses on biosecurity concerns linked to the region’s large livestock industries.

FAO’s 32 Members in the Latin America and Caribbean region are very diverse, but the anti-hunger agenda is widely shared by its leaders. It is also notably a net food exporter, making its agrifood systems a globally important asset.

At the same time, it has the world’s highest cost of a healthy diet, chronically high rural poverty persistence, insufficient research and development investment in the agriculture sectors, declining farm productivity gains. The region is also a major environmental asset for the planet, home to the Amazonian ecosystems and vast biodiversity.