Latin America and the Caribbean could be first developing
region to eradicate hunger
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States food
security plan offers a clear pathway to zero hunger within ten years, FAO
Director-General says
25 January 2017, Dominican Republic - Latin America and the
Caribbean could be the first developing region to completely eradicate hunger
if its governments further strengthen their implementation of a food security
plan developed by the CELAC bloc, FAO’s Director-General José Graziano da Silva
said today.
Speaking at the Summit of Presidents and Heads of State and
Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, Graziano da Silva stated that, "CELAC’sFood Security, Nutrition and Hunger Eradication Plan (FNS) represents the
crystallization of governments’ political will to eradicate hunger before
2025."
Approved by CELAC in 2015, the plan promotes comprehensive
public policies to reduce poverty, improve rural conditions, adapt agriculture
to climate change, end food waste and face disaster risks.
In his address, FAO’s Director-General noted that the CELAC
FNS plan is fully in line with high-level global commitments such as the Paris
Agreement on Climate Change and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
And the region has made an even more ambitious commitment,
he noted: to eradicate hunger by the year 2025, five years before the target
established by SDG 2: Zero Hunger.
"This region has all the necessary conditions to
achieve this, starting with the great political commitment that sustains the
CELAC FNS Plan," explained Graziano da Silva.
The plan is already bearing fruit throughout the region:
Bolivia, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela
relied on it to diagnose their food and nutrition security policies, while Peru
used it as a base for the creation of laws regarding food donation and to
minimize food losses and waste.
Tackling the double burden of malnutrition
The integral nature of CELAC’s FNS Plan allows countries to
not only address hunger but also obesity, which affects 140 million people in
the region according to the FAO / PAHO report Panorama of Food and NutritionSecurity.
Malnutrition generates enormous economic and social costs,
as public health systems must now cope with increasing levels of diabetes,
hypertension and heart disease, as well as the consequences of child stunting,
wasting and undernourishment.
According to the FAO, one of the worrying trends in the
region is the increase in female obesity: the rates of obesity for women are
ten percentage points higher than that of men in more than twenty countries in
the region.
As a way to o confront this situation, Graziano da Silva
highlighted the CELAC FNS Plan’s Gender Strategy, which will ensure that the
plan benefits women and men equally and which is already being implemented as a
pilot program in four countries: El Salvador, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic
and Haiti.
Strengthening family farming to tackle climate change
According to FAO’s Director-General, the impacts of climate
change have the potential to reverse the gains made in the fight against hunger
and extreme poverty in the region.
"Agriculture is the sector most affected by climate
change and one of its main victims are small family farmers, men and women,
many of whom struggle daily for their survival," said Graziano da Silva.
Together with CELAC, FAO is developing a plan of action for
family agriculture and rural territorial development that promotes sustainable
intensification of production, public procurement and food supply systems,
rural services and greater opportunities for rural youth.
FAO is supporting CELAC in putting together a Regional
Strategy for Disaster Risk Management for Agriculture and Food Security, which
supports resilience and adaptation of farmers through sustainable farming
techniques and resource management.
Graziano da Silva stressed that eleven countries in the
region have already adhered to the Port State Agreement, which seeks to
eradicate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and called on all
countries to join in taking care of the sustainability and conservation of
their fishery resources.
Peace, food security and sustainable development
In Colombia, the CELAC FNS Plan has supported the creation
of a strategy aimed at rehabilitating the livelihoods of vulnerable communities
in the central area of the country.
According to FAO’s Director-General, the peace process in
Colombia illustrates the indissoluble link between peace, food security and
sustainable development, an issue that is at the heart of the 2030 SustainableDevelopment Agenda.
"There will be no social stability or peace as long as
there is hunger, poverty and inequality. Nor can we move forward if we continue
to exploit our natural resources. Sustainability is a pre-condition for
development," said Graziano da Silva.
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