Latin America and the Caribbean saw a dramatic rise in the number of men, women, and children who experienced hunger in 2020, much of it related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hunger and food insecurity levels in the region have been rising steadily since 2014 but registered a 30% increase last year — the starkest on record.
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According to the Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2021, released Nov. 30, the number of people living in hunger rose by almost 14 million people between 2019 and 2020, closing the year at 59.7 million — the highest point in the past 20 years.
The report was compiled by five United Nations agencies —the Food and Agriculture Organization, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Pan American Health Organization, World Food Programme, and UNICEF — which indicated that the region is moving backward in the fight against hunger. A global overview presented by the same agencies last July came to similar conclusions.
"The pandemic has had a devastating impact over the situation of food security and nutrition in our region,” said Julio Berdegué, FAO’s regional representative, during the report’s launch. "But not everything is due to the pandemic. Since 2014, close to 27 million have been added to the world of those who go to bed without being adequately nourished."
Berdegué and other speakers at the launch emphasized the need to transform the region’s food systems and industries while maintaining or strengthening social emergency programs established during the pandemic and expanding coverage of meal programs.
In 2020, 9.1% of the people in LAC experienced hunger, a figure slightly under the world’s average of 9.9%.
However, the region experienced the largest increase in any region in the world. Some possible explanations include the disproportionate number of cases in the region, its high inequality and its large percentage of people working in the informal sector.
Moderate or severe food insecurity affected 40.9% of the population, well above the global level of 30.4%.
Women were more likely than men to be food insecure, with almost 41.8% of women in LAC experiencing moderate or severe food security compared with 32.2% of men. This gender gap is on the rise, from 4.1% when measurements began in 2014 to 9.6% last year.
“We need to make sure that all programs — be it welfare, employment, or nutritional — have a gender lens and consider the needs of women and vulnerable populations”, said Lola Castro, WFP regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, during the report’s launch.
Between the periods 2017 to 2019 and 2018 to 2020, the Northern Triangle showed the biggest increases in the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity. Recent research showed that food insecure people in those countries are more likely to make plans to migrate than those who have enough to eat.
About the author
Diego Arguedas Ortiz
Diego Arguedas Ortiz is a climate journalist from Costa Rica. He has covered climate change since 2013 and is currently the associate director of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, a program at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University. His work has appeared in BBC Future, MIT Technology Review, Vice, BBC Culture, and Anthropocene, among other outlets. In 2015, he led the creation of Ojo al Clima, Central America's first climate news outlet, where he stayed as editor until 2019. His work includes six U.N. Climate Conferences, the Panama Papers international collaboration in 2016, and on-the-ground reporting from a dozen countries.
