Climate Action 2014-2015

MITIGATION AND ADAPTATION
The region’s governments have begun supplying their school feeding programs by using the public
budget to purchase products from family farms, ensuring better nutrition to schoolchildren while also
boosting local development and agricultural production.
©Verena Urrutia FAO
INITIATIVES TO
FIGHT HUNGER AND
MALNUTRITION
Great challenges remain despite the
progress made so far: 37 million people
still suffer hunger, 164 million live in
poverty (27.9 per cent of the regional
population) and 68 million are indigent
(11.5 per cent of the population).
While 14 countries have met the
MDG target and 10 have met both the
MDG and WFS targets, nearly half of
the region’s nations have a prevalence
of malnutrition that exceeds 10 per
cent. Moreover, there are substantial
variations even within sub-regions and
countries, since there are geographic
zones and social groups where poverty
and food insecurity prevail. This is
particularly true in rural areas, where
poverty affects 52 per cent of the
population and almost a third endure
extreme poverty. Indigenous people
in the region are far more likely to
suffer poverty and hunger, while female
poverty has also increased, despite a
steady decline across the board.
FAO is working closely with
governments, civil society, academia
and the private sector to tackle all these
challenges and build the road to ‘zero
hunger’ through three main regional
initiatives, mandated by its member
countries during the Regional FAO
Conference held in March 2014 in
Santiago, Chile (pictured).
The first regional scheme is the
continued and strengthened support of
the Hunger-Free Latin America and
the Caribbean 2025 Initiative, HFLACI,
to help to create the conditions that
will contribute to the permanent
eradication of hunger in a time frame
corresponding to one generation.
FAO is supporting the HFLACI in the
design and implementation of multisectoral
public policies and programmes,
improving institutional capacities, legal
frameworks, as well as in identifying the
human and budgetary resources needed
to reach national hunger reduction
goals. This entails better technical
support for specific policies to increase
food productivity, supply chains and
the resilience of family farming. Better
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