I Ibero-American and Caribbean Parliamentary Forum on Food Security

The I Ibero-American and Caribbean Parliamentary Forum on Food Security, held in the Senate of the Republic of Mexico, brought together more than 120 parliamentarians from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal, along with organizations such as FAO, AECID, AMEXCID and FIAP, with the aim of designing a shared agenda to guarantee the human right to food. One of its key milestones was the presentation and signing of the legislative pact called the “Food First” Pact, an initiative that seeks to strengthen legal, budgetary and accountability frameworks aimed at combating hunger while ensuring adequate nutrition.

The pact promotes the creation of laws that guarantee food security and nutrition based on criteria of environmental sustainability, gender equality and citizen participation. It also fosters cooperation between parliaments, governments and civil society, and coordination with regional initiatives such as the SAN-CELAC Plan or the UN’s SUN Movement in Latin America and the Caribbean. Backed by FAO, Spanish and Mexican Cooperation, and SEGIB, the pact seeks to consolidate a permanent Ibero-American and Caribbean parliamentary alliance committed to achieving SDG 2 (Zero Hunger).

At this Forum, the director of FIAP recalled that nutrition is not only a matter of food, but also of rights, governance and social justice, and that this is the philosophy that guides FIAP’s action in international cooperation. He also pointed out that malnutrition perpetuates poverty and inequality, and that only through solid, coordinated and well-funded public policies can this structural cycle be broken. Cooperation must be flexible, innovative and local, listening to communities.

Through the European programmes EU-CAN and EU4SUN, FIAP contributes directly to improving nutrition in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa by strengthening public policies and the institutions responsible for guaranteeing food security. With EU-CAN, the foundation promotes social protection and local agri-food production in the Eastern Caribbean, placing special emphasis on the empowerment of women and young people as drivers of social change and sustainable development. For its part, through EU4SUN, it helps to expand and improve nutrition interventions in the countries that are part of the SUN Movement.

After the Forum, parliamentarians from countries that are part of the SUN Movement had the opportunity to take part in a parallel dialogue in which the EU4SUN project, together with representatives of the SUN Movement and FIAP, shared the commitments made at the N4G Summit held in Paris. The dialogue made it possible to link these commitments with the legislative work of the Parliamentary Fronts against Hunger, fostering synergies and greater coherence between national policies and parliamentary action. The meeting has strengthened the strategic role of legislators in promoting nutrition and food security policies.