Towards a community of practice : a way to improve research, advocacy and policy in healthy food systems in Latin America and the Caribbean (final report CIAPEC-INTA team)

The current project had the objective of creating a community of practice to strengthen research and advocacy tools and regional capacities, enhance collaboration across the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region. We report in specific of the sub-objective of creating the Front-of-Package labelling hub as the first experience to organize priority lines of the community. We have +50 participants of the hub from several countries and professions and conducted 4 meetings over 10 months. Using a participatory approach, we were able to develop norms and objectives of the hub, discuss and participate in relevant regional discussions on the topic, including a research conference, seminars, and technical meetings; we created research and advocacy tools, and we are in the process of generating a with a multi-country data set on food composition. The work of the hub involved students and as a hub we actively participated in activities of capacity building such as the Leadership Program in Nutrition. We believe this experience builds the foundations for creating new hubs in the community of practice in the next years and shows that it is possible to establish inter-country and multi-actor knowledge hubs to work together with advocates on critical topics for promoting food systems transformation in the region