To alleviate the impact of food insecurity and a record level of inflation, the governments of Mexico, Haiti and the Central American area, Panama and the Dominican Republic (CAPARD) have approved policy responses for an amount equivalent, on average, to 1.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP). More than 62 million people in the mentioned countries have experienced food insecurity after the pandemic.
The recent increase in food prices has intensified the problem, turning this subregion into the one with the highest percentage of population with food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean.
These data are derived from study “Food Security in Central America, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Haiti”which has just been published by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in which it offers an overview of the outlook and prospects for food security in the region after the Covid-19 pandemic, considering the impacts of the current escalating inflation.
Preserving food security requires short- and long-term measures
The IDB study It proposes recommendations to strengthen food security in the short and medium term with policies aimed at families and affected sectors, such as targeted transfers, food provision programs, support for the agricultural sector, and trade measures.
In addition, the report discusses structural measures to strengthen food systems and prevent future crisessuch as investment in public goods, access to agricultural financing, research, development and innovation in the sector, and openness to international trade, among others, which must be designed with a gender perspective, given the greater vulnerability of women to the effects of economic shocks.
Although moderate or severe food insecurity in this region was already above the average for Latin America and the Caribbeanthis has been exacerbated by the global inflationary escalation caused by the pandemic and by the war conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has caused increases in the prices of basic products. In the typical country of CAPARD and Mexico, imports of corn, rice and wheat represent more than 40% of the consumption of these products.
Inflation has become the main concern of households and it is estimated that the percentage of households with incomes below the cost of the basic food basket has increased this year by more than 5 percentage points compared to 2019. Those led by women or by informal workers and rural households are the ones that have been especially affected.