Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2021: Statistics and Trends

Overview

This edition of the Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2021: Statistics and Trends reveals a bleak scenario for the future. In 2020, 59.7 million people in our region suffered from hunger, and between 2019 and 2020 the prevalence of hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean increased by 2 percentage points. The increases in moderate or severe food insecurity from 2019 to 2020 were even steeper than the increase in hunger at 9 percentage points. Forty-one percent of the regional population is moderately or severely food insecure: that is 267 million people whose human right to food is not being met. In the Region, one in four adults suffer from obesity. Childhood overweight has been increasing over the last 20 years and is above the world average: it affected 7.5 percent of children under five in 2020.

The five United Nations agencies behind this publication want to contribute to this transformation by measuring and monitoring food and nutrition security indicators to promote the formulation and implementation of evidence-based policies. This publication contributes to the policy dialogue for post-pandemic recovery, which is fundamental to closing gaps in equality and to meeting the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.