Strengthening governance and public policies for sustainable and adequate food systems in 10 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean
In the world, more than 2 billion adults - and almost 380 million children and adolescents - are overweight or obese. This is due, to a large extent, to the fact that current food systems fail to guarantee food and nutritional security for all, and do not allow equitable access to healthy diets, while contributing to environmental degradation.
The outlook in Latin America and the Caribbean has led the region to face the challenge of generating public policies and institutional arrangements at the state level to combat the phenomenon of "multi-load of malnutrition", manifested strongly under the forms of undernourishment, overweight and obesity, a phenomenon that, as already indicated, has an intimate relationship with food systems.
In 2017, obesity already reached 7.3% of children under five years of age and 24.1% of adults over 18 years of age in Latin America, while undernourishment has increased in the last three years, then of almost a decade of retreat across the continent.
The project
With these challenges in view, the South-South Cooperation project “Strengthening governance and public policies for sustainable and adequate food systems in 10 LAC countries”, carried out by FAO, the Brazilian government, represented by the Brazilian Agency of Cooperation (ABC) and the Ministry of Citizenship, and the governments of ten partner countries, will seek to improve the food systems of these countries from the increase in their sustainability, adequate nutrition and efficiency, by strengthening the governance and the capacities of the actors related to public initiatives aimed at stimulating and promoting access and consumption of healthy foods.
The expected result is the improvement of multisectoral governance structures in Food and Nutrition Security (SAN) through tools for decision making, design, implementation and evaluation of public policies favorable to the nutritional situation of the population in these countries. In practice, the project is committed to strengthening the inter-institutional instances for governance in SAN, involving all relevant actors (decision makers, civil society, private sector, parliamentarians, etc.), thus promoting the design and implementation of Public policies are innovative, promote physical, economic access and the consumption of healthy foods of vulnerable populations and age groups at risk.
Finally, territorial strategies for food supply in areas prioritized by countries with problems of access to healthy food will be technically supported. As a strategy, the project will promote the exchange of knowledge between key actors, the promotion of political agreements, the generation of evidence for decision-making and efficient management of applied knowledge.
The project will be carried out at two levels: regional (in existing instances of multilateral and bilateral South South cooperation) and at national level.