On 23 September 2021, the Food Systems Summit convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, was held. Latin America and the Caribbean played an essential role in this event. The official proposals and recommendations presented at the Summit are part of the official reports of the national dialogues and the speeches of their official representatives. In this publication, we reproduce the transcripts of these 23 speeches. This publication is an invitation to those who want to learn about Latin America and the Caribbean proposals at the Summit.

The book has been prepared by authors from different international organizations – including FAO, IFPRI, UNCTAD and ECLAC, as well as legislators and academics from prestigious Latin American universities – seeking to foster reflections for the Global Food Systems Summit, to be held in September 2021. It contextualizes the region’s food systems within a post COVID-19 pandemic scenario and raises new challenges (and opportunities) for policy makers, decision makers, the private sector, and the general public. Likewise, it offers important reflections on sustainability, from production to consumption, with the call to promote better governance of the global and regional food system. In order to face what some authors have deemed “the Syndemic of the century”, the participation of companies, research centres, academia, NGOs, government agencies and international organizations will be necessary.

In recent years, various factors have diverted the world off the path to eradicating hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition by 2030, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this trend. Latin America and the Caribbean is no exception. 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 the region suffered from hunger, and between 2019 and 2020 the prevalence of hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean increased by 2 percentage points. Much of this can be explained by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which reduced the incomes of millions of people in the region. But it is not behind all the setbacks, as the region's hunger figures have been growing for six consecutive years.

The coronavirus pandemic has upended local, national, and global food systems, and put the Sustainable Development Goals further out of reach. But lessons from the world’s response to the pandemic can help address future shocks and contribute to food system change. In the 2021 Global Food Policy Report, IFPRI researchers and other food policy experts explore the impacts of the pandemic and government policy responses, particularly for the poor and disadvantaged, and consider what this means for transforming our food systems to be healthy, resilient, efficient, sustainable, and inclusive. Chapters in the report look at balancing health and economic policies, promoting healthy diets and nutrition, strengthening social protection policies and inclusion, integrating natural resource protection into food sector policies, and enhancing the contribution of the private sector. Regional sections look at the diverse experiences around the world, and a special section on finance looks at innovative ways of funding food system transformation. Critical questions addressed include: - Who felt the greatest impact from falling incomes and food system disruptions caused by the pandemic? - How can countries find an effective balance among health, economic, and social policies in the face of crisis? - How did lockdowns affect diet quality and quantity in rural and urban areas? - Do national social protection systems such as cash transfers have the capacity to protect poor and vulnerable groups in a global crisis? - Can better integration of agricultural and ecosystem polices help prevent the next pandemic? - How did companies accelerate ongoing trends in digitalization and integration to keep food supply chains moving? - What different challenges did the pandemic spark in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and how did these regions respond?

Regional Overview present the regional food security and nutrition situation, including trends of undernourishment, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition, together with other indicators that could help the understanding of the causes of hunger and malnutrition. This edition offers a regional overview of the socioeconomic state of the region; national and regional data and trends regarding the costs and affordability of healthy diets; the possible drivers behind the high cost of healthy diets and their unaffordability; and introduces policies and investments around the region that aim to reduce the cost of nutritious foods and improve the affordability of healthy diets.

This Open Access book compiles the findings of the Scientific Group of the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021 and its research partners. The Scientific Group was an independent group of 28 food systems scientists from all over the world with a mandate from the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. The chapters provide science- and research-based, state-of-the-art, solution-oriented knowledge and evidence to inform the transformation of contemporary food systems in order to achieve more sustainable, equitable and resilient systems.

Why write a book on macroeconomic policies and their links to agriculture and food security in developing countries? The food price spikes of the years just prior to 2010 and the economic, political, and social dislocations they generated refocused the attention of policymakers and development practitioners on the agricultural sector and food security concerns. But even without those traumatic events, the importance of agriculture for developing countries—and for an adequate functioning of the world economy— cannot be denied. First, although declining over time, primary agriculture still represents important percentages of developing countries’ overall domestic production, exports, and employment. If agroindustrial, transportation, commercial, and other related activities are also counted, then the economic and social importance of agriculture-based sectors increases significantly. Furthermore, large numbers of the world’s poor still live in rural areas and work in agriculture. Through the links via production, trade, employment, and prices, agricultural production is also crucial for national food security. Second, it has been shown that agriculture in developing countries has important growth and employment multipliers for the rest of the economy, and agriculture seems to have larger positive effects in reducing poverty than growth in other sectors. Third, agriculture is not only important for individual developing countries, but it has global significance, considering the large presence of developing countries in world agricultural production and the increasing participation in international trade of those products (these three points will be covered in greater detail in Chapter 1).

Diverse foods derived from livestock production systems, including grazing and pastoralist systems, and from the hunting of wild animals, provide high-quality proteins, important fatty acids and various vitamins and minerals – contributing to healthy diets for improved nutrition and health. Livestock species are adapted to a wide range of environments, including areas that are unsuitable for crop production. Globally, more than a billion people depend on livestock value chains for their livelihoods. Small-scale livestock farmers and pastoralists make up a large proportion of livestock producers. Well integrated livestock production increases the resilience of small-scale farming systems. Livestock also provide other important ecosystem services in landscape management, provide energy and help to improve soil fertility. Rangeland or grassland ecosystems occupy some 40 percent of the world’s terrestrial area. Livestock keepers raise grazing animals to transform grassland vegetation into food. Challenges related to high resource utilization and pollution, food–feed competition, greenhouse-gas emissions, antimicrobial resistance and animal welfare as well as zoonotic and food-borne diseases, accessibility and affordability need to be solved if agrifood systems are to become more sustainable. FAO’s Committee on Agriculture requested a comprehensive, science- and evidence-based global assessment of the contribution of livestock to food security, sustainable food systems, nutrition and healthy diets, considering environmental, economic and social sustainability. The assessment consists of four component documents. This first component document provides a holistic analysis of the contribution of terrestrial animal source food to healthy diets for improved nutrition and health outcomes over the course of people’s lives.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (IAASTD) looks realistically at how we could effectively use agriculture/AKST to help us meet development and sustainability goals. An unprecedented three-year collaborative effort, the IAASTD involved more than 400 authors in 110 countries and cost more than $11 million. It reports on the advances and setbacks of the past fifty years and offers options for the next fifty years. The results of the project are contained in seven reports: a Global Report, five regional Sub-Global Assessments, and a Synthesis Report. The Global Report gives the key findings of the Assessment, and the five Sub-Global Assessments address regional challenges. The volumes present options for action. All of the reports have been extensively peer-reviewed by governments and experts and all have been approved by a panel of participating governments. The Sub-Global Assessments all utilize a similar and consistent framework: examining and reporting on the impacts of AKST on hunger, poverty, nutrition, human health, and environmental/social sustainability. The five Sub-Global Assessments cover the following regions: Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) East and South Asia and the Pacific (ESAP) Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) North America and Europe (NAE) Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)