Highlights:

The first part of this edition of the Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean 2022 presents up-to-date data on the cost and affordability of healthy diets in the region. It examines the relationship of these data with socioeconomic factors such as poverty and income inequality and nutrition indicators, to support decision-making concerning food and agriculture
policies.

In this first part, it is stated that Latin America and the Caribbean had the highest cost of a healthy diet compared to other regions, at USD 3.89 per person per day in 2020, followed by Asia (USD 3.46), Northern America and Europe (USD 3.19) and Oceania (USD 3.07).

Between 2019 and 2020, the cost of a healthy diet in the region increased by 3.4 percent.

In 2020, 131 million people in the region could not afford a healthy diet. This is an increase of 8 million from 2019, and is due to the higher cost of healthy diets in the region, where 22.5 percent of the population cannot afford a healthy diet. In the Caribbean, more than half of the population cannot afford a healthy diet.

Chapter 5 provides an update on food inflation in the Region and its impacts on low-income groups.

In the second part of the report, an agrifood system approach is presented to implement and repurpose three categories of policies: (i) producer-oriented, to support and promote the diversification of the production of nutritious foods; (ii) trade- and food market-oriented for price transparency and efficiency through digitalization; and (iii) consumer-oriented, to support the income and promote healthy diets of the most vulnerable populations.

Finally, examples of policies that have been implemented in the region and have contributed towards making healthy diets more affordable are presented.