Brazil leaves UN hunger map and launches global initiative as G-20 president
Latest report on the status of food security and nutrition in the worldspreads United Nationsshows a noticeable improvement in numbers Brazil. Severe food insecurity, which affected 17.2 million Brazilians in 2022, reduced to 2.5 million in 2023. In absolute terms, 14.7 million people stopped going hungry in the country.
According to the methodology of this study, it is defined as “severe food insecurity” the situation of a person who has run out of food and has not eaten for one or more days. Its consequences in early childhood are serious deterioration of mental development and cognitive training.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) prevalence indices undernutrition in Brazil was reduced from 4.2% to 2.8% between the triennium 2020-2022 and 2023. in numbers 3 million people left the situation of chronic malnutrition, from 9 to 6 million during this period.
In 2018, Brazil returned to the “radar” of the UN hunger map, and the situation was exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic among the most vulnerable sectors associated with the informal economy. However, The increase in hunger recorded by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) has been creeping up since five years before the pandemic..
Deterioration of the indices led in December 2021 with respect to the presidential elections the following year, Jair Bolsonaro’s government launched the “Auxilio Brasil” program.aid aimed at the most vulnerable groups of the population.
It replaced the historic “Bolsa Familia” introduced by Lula in 2003, during his first presidency, which was able to lift 36 million Brazilians out of poverty.
With Lula’s return to power in March 2023, an ambitious plan to end hunger in Brazil for good by 2025 was launched. The challenges remain huge as there is a structural problem in the north of the countrywhere 16% of households face a food insecurity situation, and in the northeastern states where this number reaches 14.8% of families.
The Brazilian government, as acting president of the G-20, launched the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty this year, a plan that seeks to raise awareness in the international community, focusing on internal and external funding to eradicate food insecurity around the world. It is one of the country’s driving forces towards the G-20 summit, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro in November.
“What we want with the Alliance is a practical mechanism to mobilize financial resources and knowledge and direct them where they are most neededthereby supporting the implementation and expansion of a range of actions, policies and programs at the national level,” said the country’s Minister of Development and Social Assistance, Wellington Dias.
The initiative was well received by multilateral lending organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the African Development Bank, which proposed the use of Special Drawing Rights, an accounting unit of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). support this initiative.