Six Caribbean countries have attained the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on hunger and feature promising indicators with regards to food security and nutrition, according to a report released here on Thursday. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report titled “Panorama of Food Insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean 2015,” notes that Barbados, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Cuba and the Dominican Republic have achieved the feat. The report noted that Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has made a huge step towards the total eradication of hunger by reducing both the percentage and total number of undernourished people to less than half. The region also met the goal of the World Food Summit (WFS), having reduced the total number of undernourished people to 34.3 million. According to the report, in 1990-92, LAC began the challenge of the MDGs with 14.7 per cent of its population affected by hunger. In 2014-16 this prevalence fell to 5.5 per cent, meaning that the region has already achieved the MDG on hunger. Although the Caribbean's progress has been slow, this has been largely due to the instability of the socio-economic situation and climate in Haiti, which accounts for 75 per cent of the undernourished population in the Caribbean. “The region’s success story is based on the positive macroeconomic situation during the past two decades and the solid and continued political commitment of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean with the eradication of hunger,” said Raul Benitez, FAO’s Regional Representative. Jamaica is among five countries that close to achieving the goal of hunger of the MDGs. The FAO report notes that regional progress is mainly due to the success of the Southern Cone countries, and adds that the commitment to hunger can be seen throughout the region: seventeen countries achieved the hunger goal of the MDGs while eleven countries reached the WFS target. Benitez said that thanks to economic growth, increased public spending on social matters and public policies focused on the most vulnerable, Latin America and the Caribbean today represents a smaller share of global hunger. According to the FAO publication, the region pioneered the proposal not only to decrease but fully eradicate hunger, through the Hunger Free Latin America and Caribbean Initiative, which has been endorsed by all countries in the region since the year 2005.