The Challenges of Eradicating Child Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

The children of the Latin American and Caribbean region are the population most affected by poverty, and they are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity. Feeding difficulties during childhood jeopardize biopsychosocial development, and depending on the stage in which these deprivations occur and its persistence, they can have an irreversible impact on the structural aspects of the physical and cognitive development. As a result of the different nutrition transition stages where the countries of the region are at, a significant increase in the overnutrition rate and its risk factors for chronic diseases has been detected, in a context where the prevailing malnutrition has not ceased to be problematic. From a human rights perspective, it is important to highlight that children are subjects of rights and human beings developing. As a consequence, the states face the challenge of ensuring the exercise of the right to food through comprehensive protection systems. Nevertheless, the population of children who experience the shortages of the region is characterized by a great sociocultural, geographic, environmental, ethnic and racial diversity, among other aspects which were added to the complexity of the perspective, diagnosis, and solution. In this respect, this article aims to carry out an analysis of the politics, plans, and programs which have had as a direct objective the eradication of child hunger and have evolved in the countries of the region since the establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, 2015) and its achieved outcomes. The purpose is to provide an evaluation of the experiences considered positive and the ones which have demonstrated to be inadequate, regarding food availability as well as its access in a regular, sufficient, secure, and adequate way for nutritional benefit.