A sharp decline in remittances, augmented by rising food and fuel prices, spiked poverty and malnutrition levels in El Salvador during the last decade. In 2008, extreme poverty rose by 6.5%, and 87% of poor households reduced food consumption levels, threatening El Salvador’s important gains toward fulfilling the MDGs in areas like hunger and poverty reduction (MDG 1) and improved infant mortality rates (MDG 4). This Joint Programme's aim was to build consensus and strengthen the government's capacity to set forth integrated approaches to alleviate child hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity. 

This Joint Programme aimed to reduce the prevalence of anemia in young children and pregnant women in Cuba by assisting the government to increase the production, access to and use of foodstuffs rich in micronutrients, mainly iron. Cuba's food and nutritional surveillance systems were also targeted by the programme, which focused on the most vulnerable municipalities of the five eastern provinces and Pinar del Río.

In Colombia’s Chocó region, where the majority of the population is indigenous or Afro-descendant, nearly 80% of people live below the poverty line and infants die at twice the rate elsewhere in the country. This Joint Programme worked to improve the food security and nutrition of pregnant and lactating women and children up to the age of five years from indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities suffering from marginalisation, vulnerability and exclusion.

Four out of ten Brazilian Indians live in extreme poverty, and more than half of indigenous children are anemic. The Joint Programme's goal was to support the government in its efforts to improve the food security and nutritional status of indigenous children in the regions of Dourados and Alto Rio Solimões.