Although there is still no available information at the national level on the impacts of the pandemic on food and nutrition security, preliminary data allow us to foresee that hunger, overweight and obesity will increase markedly in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Hunger will increase as a result of the lack of access to food due to the loss of jobs and income of a significant part of the population, as well as the total or partial closure of schools that often provide a fundamental part of the diets for boys and girls of school age.

According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, ECLAC, as a result of the pandemic, the regional unemployment rate at could exceed 13.5%, that is, 18 million people would be added to the current unemployed population. In addition, poverty will affect 45.5 million more people in the region, while extreme poverty will increase by 28.5 million. This implies that poverty could affect 37% of the regional population and extreme poverty would reach 15.5%, the highest rates in the last 19 years.

Similarly, the reduction in income will mean that many families and individuals will have to replace healthy and nutritious foods with cheaper and less nutritious ones, which could lead to an increase in overweight and obesity in the medium and long term.

The 2020 Overview proposes a series of measures to prevent the health crisis from turning into a food crisis. The two most important and urgent measures are a voucher against hunger -cash transfer- in support of the population living in extreme poverty, and actions to financially support agricultural producers.

For all households to have access to sufficient and nutritious food, it is necessary to reinforce the basic emergency income with a voucher against hunger; reinforce school feeding programs; and support -with monetary subsidies or food donations from companies and governments-- the food assistance initiatives of civil society organizations.

For all companies and actors in the food system to be able to carry out their tasks without interruptions, it is necessary to grant financial support (credit and productive subsidies) to agricultural companies, aimed mainly at family farming; adjust sanitation and health protocols in production, transportation, and wholesale and retail markets; expand and guarantee the operation of support programs for self-consumption production; and ensure financing, technical assistance and access to inputs and labor for farmers and artisanal fishermen.

For countries to have enough food to guarantee their supply at reasonable prices, agile mechanisms for consultation and public-private coordination must be established or maintained among all actors in the food system, covering production, supply, distribution and access to food; we must prevent wholesale and retail markets and agro-industries from closing or reducing their operations; and maintain the policies that have kept world food trade open, in particular by avoiding protectionist measures that increase the price of food.

The drops in income mean that a part of the population has fewer resources to feed itself, which increases hunger in the most vulnerable populations. Similarly, lower incomes and the high cost of healthy diets mean that a part of the population must opt for low-quality and less nutritious foods, which increases overweight and obesity.

Although hunger and obesity occur simultaneously in countries and in various territories, they do not necessarily affect the same populations. The Overview highlights that hunger occurs more frequently in rural areas with a lack of access to services, while overweight and obesity are more concentrated in urban areas, and mainly affect the population groups with high, medium and medium-low income; obesity is no case an exclusive phenomenon of high-income families.

The Overview shows which territories are highly lagging with respect to child overweight and stunting (meaning that their levels are higher than the national average by at least one standard deviation) and those with low lag (their levels are simply higher than the national average).

The location of the high-lagging territories varies in each country, but in general terms, in the case of stunting, these are concentrated in the northern part of Chile and Argentina, southeast of Paraguay, the interior of Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, as well as the Northeast of Brazil and the south of Mexico. An important focus stunting occurs in the Amazon area, where a large part of the indigenous population of Latin America is concentrated.

In the case of child overweight, the highly lagging territories tend to be concentrated in the capitals of the region, but it is also very present in the south and center of Chile and Argentina, the south of Brazil, the south of Bolivia, the coast and the southern Peru, central Colombia, and northern, central and western Mexico.

The countries with the highest levels of hunger (undernourishment, the traditional PoU indicator of FAO) in the region in the 2017-19 triennium were: Haiti (48.2%), The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (31.4%), Nicaragua (17.2%), Guatemala ( 16.1%) and The Plurinational State of Bolivia (15.5%).

Regarding the evolution of hunger in the different countries, among the increases registered between 2013-2015 and 2017-2019, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) shows a significant increase in its prevalence, which stands at 22.8 percentage points, tripling its undernourished population in 5 years, with 31.4% of its population affected. Mexico shows an increase of 2.5 percentage points in its prevalence of hunger in the same period, affecting 7.1% of its population. Also worth mentioning is Haiti, where almost half of the population is undernourished. The sum of these three countries represents 50% of the undernourished population in the region.

Regarding stunting, Saint Lucia and Chile are the two countries with the lowest rates of child stunting: 2.5% and 1.8% respectively. Regarding the progress of the countries of the region, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay and Peru show the most notable progress.

Regarding child overweight, the countries with the lowest rates of overweight in children under 5 years of age are Guatemala (4.9%), Suriname (4%) and Haiti (3.4%).

One of the main messages of the 2020 Overview is that differentiated policies are needed to address all forms of malnutrition in lagging territories. Without policies and programs that address the particular characteristics of these territories, the goals of the Sustainable Development Goals will not be achieved.

Under the premise of the need to develop actions with a territorial approach, the Overview proposes three types of policies: first, policies aimed at improving economic access and promoting adequate nutrition in lagging territories are necessary. In particular, social protection policies are relevant, such as cash or in-kind transfer programs; support for farmers' livelihoods, aimed at improving their access to financial and non-financial assets and rural services; and the creation of decent employment through the generation of rural non-agricultural employment, as well as the implementation of strategies to generate decent employment opportunities in peripheral urban areas, which concentrate high percentages of poverty.

Policies are also needed to improve production and physical access to foods that promote adequate nutrition. To do this, it is key to promote sustainable value chains that take nutrition into account; strengthen and expand school feeding programs, and promote short marketing circuits.

Polices are required to improve the use of food and its quality, ensuring adequate handling and eating practices, healthy consumption habits and a healthy home environment, as well as appropriate health services. In this area, the Overview highlights policies to promote maternal and child nutrition; to promote complementary feeding; the expansion of access to water, sanitation and hygiene; the development of communication measures for behavioral change aimed at acquiring adequate eating habits; and quality assurance of food consumed outside the home.

Some of the main causes of hunger are poverty, lack of employment or precarious work. For this reason, policies aimed at improving economic access to adequate food in lagging territories are of fundamental importance.

In particular, social protection plays a central role given its potential to drive and accelerate progress in food security and nutrition, and to support the resilience of people living in situations of increased vulnerability.

Likewise, since family farming is one of the main sources of income and food for a significant part of the rural population, supporting the livelihoods of family farmers is a key measure to ensure their economic access to adequate food. In this regard, measures aimed at improving access to financial and non-financial assets and rural services are especially relevant; as well as the diversification of production; and the expansion of digital innovations for small producers.

In general, women and men living in poverty only rely on their work to earn income. For this reason, a quality job allows families a more stable consumption and a better quality of life. Furthermore, policies aimed at promoting employment and income-generating activities are essential to increase people's incomes and thus contribute to the reduction of hunger.

Finally, social protection policies and the creation of economic opportunities must be accompanied by health interventions (including water and sanitation) and education related to food and nutrition, especially in the first years of life and in good health. health of women of childbearing age.

All these policies require political commitment, translated into adequate human and financial capacities, which should be maintained over time and include all the different actors of the State.

The countries of the region are implementing various measures to tackle malnutrition. Many of them have been shown to have positive impacts. The Haku Wiñay social protection and productive inclusion program implemented by the Peruvian Ministry of Social Development has had clear impacts on the income and food security of participating households; According to an evaluation by the Development Analysis Group and the Ford Foundation, 63% of its participants increased their income by almost USD $ 300 as a result of the program. Likewise, their diets improved notably, showing a greater consumption of food such as cereals, tubers and vegetables, green leaves, beans, legumes, meats and eggs.

Another type of policy that has been shown to have positive impacts are school feeding programs. An evaluation carried out by the World Food Program in 15 Bolivian municipalities concluded that the National Program for Complementary School Feeding (PNACE, in Spanish) is an important investment for students, their families and the entire community. Specifically, it found that, for every dollar invested in the program, there was an economic return of USD $ 4.71 in urban areas and of USD $ 5.20 in rural areas; for each additional year in school, children improve their future income by 7%. Additionally, by receiving nutritious school meals, the students improved their nutritional status and overall health. Likewise, their school attendance increased and the school drop-out rate decreased by 3.03% in urban areas and 2.37% in rural areas.

For each country, the Overview determined the average level of stunting and overweight in children under 5 years of age; then, for each territory, we calculate how far their levels where from the national average.

The Overview considers as territories with low lag those whose indicators are above the national average, but close to the average (less than one standard deviation above the average), and as highly lagging territories those whose levels are well above the national average (more than one standard deviation above the average).

National averages vary widely from country to country: thus, for example, in Argentina, where the national average of stunting is 7.3%, in a highly lagging territory 9.9% of children under the age of 5 years are stunted. In Honduras, by contrast -where 24.9% of children under 5 years of age are stunted- a territory is considered highly lagging behind when nearly 40% of the children in that territory are stunted.

The logic of the Overview is to highlight the fact that in all the countries of the region there are areas that have been neglected by policis and where development levels are lower than for the average inhabitant of that country. Comparing simple averages of stunting or overweight between countries, without considering the context and the divergence of realities throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, leads to only focusing on certain countries, where these problems are most present, and to forget those who have better indicators, perpetuating these differences within each country.

The Overview tries precisely to address these inequities within countries, urging them to act according to their own realities.

In terms of hunger, the region has shown an increase in the last 5 years, going from 5.6% in 2014 to 7.4% in 2019, if this trend continues, the region could reach 2030 with a prevalence of undernourishment of 9.5%, that is, it would be far from meeting the goal of the Sustainable Development Goal, which proposes the eradication of hunger, even without taking into account the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic will have in the region.

In terms of malnutrition, the region has shown great progress, with a significant reduction in stunting, from 22.7% in 1990 to 9% in 2019. According to this trend, the region would be very close to meeting the goal of Sustainable Development Goal 2 on stunting by 2030. However, it should be taken into account that the pandemic may cause a setback in this indicator.

In terms of child overweight, the region is far from reaching the goal of Sustainable Development Goal 2, which proposes reducing and maintaining overweight in children under 5 years of age at 3%: currently in the region it is on the rise and the current prevalence is 7.5%.

The fight against hunger requires political commitment at the highest level. This commitment must be translated into adequate human and financial capacities, which must be maintained over time and include the different actors of the State. Citizens in general have the duty and right to ensure that the fight against hunger is part of the political agenda and is maintained as a priority commitment for the State.

To eradicate malnutrition, it is also essential to coordinate efforts with the private sector. The private sector can be a key ally in the fight against all forms of malnutrition, due to its role in the development of new technologies based on knowledge, financial resources and management and innovation.

Also, given the current context, countries are urged to attract more private financing to break the financing gap generated by the pandemic. Therefore, it is important to create public-private partnerships that promote investment in agriculture and food systems, benefiting local food security and workers' rights.