New features added to Latin America’s global leadership in health Collection
From one kitchen to a movement—Fascinating new The BMJ feature by Rodrigo de Oliveira Andrade on solidarity kitchens in Sao Paulo – a grassroots food assistance programme that grew out of covid-19 aiming to counter obesity and other diseases of poverty: Solidarity kitchens: how pandemic food assistance developed to offer much more
“When the covid-19 pandemic began, I knew Brazil would face a battle against hunger,” says Adriana Salay Leme, a historian in the city of São Paulo. So when their restaurant was forced to shut during the pandemic, Leme and her husband, the chef Rodrigo Oliveira, started feeding people living in Vila Medeiros, a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city, helping to spawn a mass movement for distributing free meals to people affected by the pandemic.
“We closed in March 2020 in compliance with the emergency measures, and the next day we started serving free lunch boxes from the front door,” Leme tells The BMJ. This is how the project “Quebrada Alimentada” (Feed the outskirts) was born. Today, in addition to daily lunch boxes, Quebrada Alimentada distributes monthly basic food hampers to around 260 families in Vila Medeiros, including in Jardim Julieta, an informal settlement that formed during the pandemic in mid-2020.
Similar solidarity kitchens, as this sort of initiative has been dubbed, have proliferated across the country, providing not just food but education and health access to the most vulnerable people—and inspiring government funding for a scheme.
Read and share the full BMJ Collection – Latin America’s global leadership in health – showcasing Brazil and regional health leadership and opportunities in a G20 presidency year, curated by Jocalyn Clark.
Latin America’s global leadership in health
In 2024, Latin America’s largest country, Brazil, holds the G20 presidency for the first time and has an unmatched opportunity to put health and the region at the centre of the global political, economic, and sustainability agendas.
2024 is a landmark year for Brazil and for the region – and an opportunity to spotlight health being at the heart of building a just world and a sustainable planet. To advance these aims, The BMJ has collected some of our recent articles in key areas, including the politics and decolonisation of health, local innovations and global lessons, and the fight for gender equality and reproductive rights in Latin America.
Press release: 18/11/2024
Lack of abortion care is a threat to women’s health in Latin America, warn experts
Articles to mark G20 Summit outline opportunities and challenges for global health equity
Lack of abortion care is a threat to women’s health in Latin America, warn experts in The BMJ today, in one of a series of articles being published to mark this week’s G20 Summit in Brazil.
Mercedes Colomar, from the University of the Republic, Uruguay, and colleagues say inequalities and restrictions to sexual and reproductive health and rights are endangering women, and they call for urgent action to improve outcomes for all women, regardless of income or geographical location.
They point out that, until 2020, 97% of women of reproductive age in Latin America lived in countries where abortion access was severely restricted, and that the average maternal death rate in countries where abortion is legally restricted is three times higher than in countries where abortion is permitted.
“By investing in comprehensive, inclusive, women centred, and accessible reproductive healthcare, we can make meaningful strides towards a future where no woman dies from preventable pregnancy related causes and where sexual and reproductive health and rights are truly realised for all,” they conclude.
In another article, Deisy Ventura from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and international colleagues say Brazil’s G20 leadership offers glimmers of hope for global health equity.
They welcome the fact that Brazil is taking this opportunity to advance global health diplomacy, but say its leadership “will need to go beyond formal declarations to address health inequity from a global south perspective.”
They point to shortfalls, such as the current G20 health meeting’s silence on war and the absence of food justice and hunger from the health declarations, and warn that under Donald Trump’s second presidency “we are likely to see withdrawal of the US from the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement on climate change, as well as funding reductions for global health programmes.”
With next year’s G20 health summit again hosted in the global south, “we are cautiously hopeful that its leadership can move beyond formal declarations to tackle global health inequities at their core,” they conclude.
Brazil and South Africa (which will host the G20 presidency in 2025) have three key opportunities to work together to strengthen their presence in global health leadership and to propose a new framing of the global health landscape based on equity within and between countries, say Maria de Lourdes Aguiar Oliveira from Fiocruz, Brazil and international colleagues in an editorial.
First is preparing for the next health crisis by building trust not only within countries and communities, but also between countries and institutions to share data, capacities, and resources.
Second is addressing the stagnation and setbacks of sustainable development goals on poverty eradication and zero hunger and third is greater focus on climate change and its effects on population health.
“Amid global economic uncertainty, increasing disease burdens, and limited resources, the expertise and collaborative leadership from southern G20 countries are vital for the global health landscape,” they conclude. “This situation underscores the importance of national efforts working together towards shared goals of equity and resilience, with leadership from the global south playing a pivotal role in this context.”
[Ends]
18/11/2024
Notes for editors
All articles available here:
https://www.bmj.com/health-in-
Mercedes Colomar and Deisy Ventura are both members of The BMJ’s regional advisory board for Latin America
