Abstract
The main objective of this project was to establish an inventory of the food and nutrition programmes during the last 14 years in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Information was obtained from official documents, interviews, and meetings with programme directors.
Nearly all the countries of the region have carried out some kind of food intervention with the aim of improving the nutritional status of the vulnerable population. Of the 137 programmes identified, 126 were food supplementation programmes and 11 were subsidies.
The programmes with the highest cost per beneficiary were the on-site food consumption programmes implemented mainly through nutritional centres (US$ 3240 per beneficiary/yr); next came those in which food was distributed as part of primary health care (US$ 28.40 per beneficiary/ yr). In terms of benefit and excluding the nutritional value of food distributed, the school programmes were the least costly (US$ 8.3 per beneficiary/yr).
Funding was provided by governments with major external support, especially in Central American and Caribbean countries. Most programmes had no evaluation. Thus there is no way of determining the nutritional impact on the target population or the effectiveness of programmes. However, the coverage of most of these programmes was so limited that, even if effective, they would not represent a satisfactory solution to national food and nutrition problems