By Mario Lubetkin, FAO Assistant
Director-General and FAO Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean for Latin America and the Caribbean
The regional commitment to fight hunger and malnutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean has made significant progress thanks to the update from 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 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
This commitment evidences Latin America and the Caribbean’s significant contribution to accelerating the fulfillment 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 percent 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.
