MARIO LUBETKIN

THE REGIONAL commitment to fight hunger and malnutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean has made significant progress, thanks to the update of the Food Security, Nutrition and Hunger Eradication Plan of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) for the period 2024-2030, known as the CELAC FNS Plan. This update was approved and ratified during the VIII Summit of Heads of State and Government of CELAC, held on March 1 in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

This commitment is evidence of Latin America and the Caribbean's significant contribution to accelerating the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals, aimed at achieving societies free of hunger, poverty and inequality in the region.

Our latest estimates show that, in 2022, 6.5 per cent of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean suffered from hunger; this represented 2.4 million fewer people than in 2021. But the situation remains critical; hunger continues to affect 43.2 million people in the region.

Likewise, limited access to resources and services, poverty, the aftermath of the pandemic, and conflicts as well as climate-related disasters, among other factors, are affecting the ecosystems on which food production and the livelihoods of farming communities depend, and threaten efforts to ensure food security, nutrition and the sustainability of agrifood systems.

In this scenario, the CELAC FNS Plan 2024-2030 is a concrete initiative, reflected in a unanimous response from more than 30 countries, which, at a ministerial level, agreed to update this document to address the challenge of hunger and food insecurity in the region.

The new plan – developed in co-ordination with the pro-tempore presidency, currently led by St Vincent and the Grenadines, and the 33 CELAC countries, with broad participation and analysis and technical assistance from FAO, ECLAC, IICA and ALADI – has become a benchmark for other regions of the world. Its implementation represents a milestone example of the consensus and political commitment of Latin America and the Caribbean.

This plan, structured into four pillars, includes a conceptual basis to guide the countries concerning legal frameworks, sustainable production, access to healthy diets, and agrifood systems resilient to climate change.

2024 could represent a decisive year for Latin America and the Caribbean to make progress in combating hunger and malnutrition and achieving more resilient and sustainable production systems. During 2023, we consolidated a deep process of alliances, consensus and dialogue that will soon be part of the FAO regional conference.

We are in the final stretch of preparation for our regional conference, to be held in March in Georgetown, Guyana, where we will facilitate exchanges and discussions that will be essential to guide FAO's technical co-operation in the design and implementation of plans and projects tailored to the needs of the countries, and in line with the priorities defined by governments at the highest political level.

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