©Ricardo Stuckert/PR
On Tuesday, 28 February 2023 – the first day of his new term of office – Brazil’s president Lula da Silva re-established the National Council for Food and Nutrition Security (CONSEA), as an important tool for the fight against hunger – a top priority for the new Administration.
Elisabetta Recine, professor at the University of Brasilia and current member of the HLPE-FSN’s Steering Committee, headed the body until its extinction in 2019 and has now returned to its presidency.
Ms Recine is also member of the Steering committee of the Brazilian Alliance for Healthy and Adequate Food, a network of civil society organizations and academics for food and nutrition security policies advocacy, as well as member of the Advisory Committee of the Brazilian Network for Research in Sovereignty and Food and Nutrition Security.
CONSEA is an advisory body to the Brazilian presidency composed of representatives of the government and civil society which, during its years of existence (1993–2019), served as a space of dialogue and articulation among different stakeholders and turned into a key facilitator for the formulation of policies like the National Policy and Plan for Food Security and Nutrition, the Food Acquisition Programme, the National School Food Programme and Brazil’s Dietary Guidelines.
There were 61.3 million people in a situation of moderately or severely food insecurity in 2020 in Brazil (FAO, SOFI 2022).
In 2014, the news that the country had left the FAO’s Hunger Map made national headlines. Despite being one of the world's largest food producers, Brazil has now returned to the Hunger Map, eight years after reducing by 82% the population of Brazilians considered to be undernourished and being removed from the list.
