7 ways WFP Innovation transformed humanitarian assistance in 2024
In a year marked by escalating humanitarian needs and complex global crises, the World Food Programme (WFP) demonstrated how innovation can strengthen both the speed and scale of emergency response. By investing in data-driven systems, digital tools and collaborative partnerships, WFP set new standards for effective and efficient humanitarian action.
Here are seven key ways WFP accelerated innovation for humanitarian assistance in 2024.
1. An expanding network of innovation
WFP’s innovation network expanded significantly in 2024, with 490 Innovation Champions, 20 country innovation units and focal points, two regional hubs and the global Innovation Accelerator fostering local solutions. Across 165 duty stations, global innovation teams and focal points worked to address pressing challenges, with initiatives like the IGNITE Innovation Challenge in Eastern Africa strengthening community-driven progress.
2. Efficiency gains…
In 2024, WFP expanded its use of cutting-edge technology to transform humanitarian operations, making every dollar and delivery count. With data-driven coordination, WFP is improving resource allocation and emergency readiness and building a smarter, faster and more efficient global supply chain.
By automating complex analyses and reconciliations, Prisma improves the efficiency of operations by enabling faster and improved planning decisions and allowing timely action. Prisma’s modular system is designed as a solution that can be configurable and flexible to adapt to each WFP country’s unique circumstances. Active in over 40 countries, Prisma has saved an estimated 10,000 work hours in 2024 by reducing time spent formatting and analysing data. Through its improvements in planning and automation, Prisma enabled WFP Pakistan to make smarter and more informed decisions with more confidence around transport terms leading to more cost-effective delivery options. In just three months of implementation in the country office, Prisma was able to avoid US$57,000 in costs and save 488 staff hours (US$88,000), creating an overall operational efficiency gain of US$145,000.
3. …and smarter supply chains
SCOUT is transforming how WFP sources food and plans deliveries by using AI to optimize global food sourcing and delivery planning. This innovative system reduces response times, prevents critical disruptions and ensures financial resources are maximized to deliver food to those in need. In 2024, SCOUT was deployed in West Africa. It helped WFP save US$2 million in its first implementation in just one year thanks to replanning the corporate inventory supply chain of only one commodity in WFP operations. It is projected to generate over US$50 million in cost savings in the coming years.
4. Innovation through partnerships: Leveraging global expertise
In 2024, WFP deepened its collaboration with private sector partners, startups and research institutions to co-develop breakthrough technologies that accelerate humanitarian preparedness and response.
The Bavarian State Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Tourism (StMELF) expanded its support to WFP’s innovative post-harvest loss work in Ethiopia. New partnerships with Luxembourg, including the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, advanced efforts in AI and catastrophe bonds for food security. The WFP Innovation Accelerator also scaled its private sector engagement: a partnership with John Deere is helping reach more smallholder farmers, while collaboration with Google leveraged tech solutions to support emergency response innovations.
Grounded in local realities, WFP’s innovation efforts are co-created with country offices, regional hubs and governments to ensure alignment with national priorities and long-term impact.
Taking an example from a country office, WFP Rwanda strengthened innovation through several key partnerships. Through the Ignite Challenge, WFP partnered with the private sector to support innovative ventures, providing grants that help scale impactful solutions in the food system area and improve refugee self-reliance. In the academic space, WFP’s Ignite Seed partnership has enabled early-stage solutions to gain funding for testing and piloting, fostering innovation from universities and research institutions. Additionally, WFP Innovation worked with financial service providers (FSPs) to co-design financial products tailored to women, advancing their financial inclusion as part of WFP’s SheCan initiative.
5. Anticipatory action: Acting before crisis strikes
WFP expanded its anticipatory action model, enabling early interventions in the face of predictable shocks. This proactive approach reduced the human and financial costs of emergencies. For example, GeoTar has further enhanced WFP’s ability to reach communities in need by improving and accelerating targeting. Leveraging machine learning to produce detailed vulnerability maps, GeoTar enables WFP critical operations to precisely allocate resources, even where data is limited. In 2024, GeoTar supported emergency and lean season targeting in Afghanistan and Chad, completing a targeting exercise covering six million people who will then receive support from WFP. In Chad, without GeoTar, this activity would have taken three to five weeks. With GeoTar, it took one day.
GeoTar is now being operationally assessed for scaling into seven WFP offices: Bangladesh, Venezuela, Colombia, Lebanon, Somalia, Ethiopia and the Sahel region.
6. New ways of financing
Financial inclusion and community empowerment remained priorities. WFP Innovation BRIDGE, in collaboration with the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), offered new financing models for impact-driven businesses. Its first recipient is Nilus; a food systems technology company that acts as a digital retailer for vulnerable urban communities. Nilus uses its mobile ecommerce app and logistics technology to significantly lower the cost of healthy food and groceries for low-income people in food deserts. Nilus delivers nutritious food at 40 percent below market prices, saving 650,000 low-income individuals an average of 22 percent and enabling women-led community networks to strengthen local food systems.
7. Using AI to enhance production for smallholder farmers
In light of changing weather patterns, WFP implements innovative strategies, enabling faster recovery and long-term resilience.
Ignitia tackles the challenges posed by changing weather patterns that disrupt traditional farming by delivering real-time, localized weather forecasts and farming advice powered by artificial intelligence. It is active in 11 countries and since 2022, has partnered with WFP, starting with WFP Mali. To date, Ignitia has reached 2.7 million farmers, including 700,000 regular paying users who receive forecasts and advisories via SMS. With strategic partnerships, such as the long-term agreement signed with WFP Ghana, Ignitia has the potential to scale across WFP operations and make its services accessible to many more farmers supported by WFP.
Where emergencies don’t wait, innovation can’t either
Last year’s innovation work underscored the importance of adaptability, strategic partnerships and user engagement in driving impactful change. Rapid deployment and scalability were enhanced through user-friendly testing and streamlined operations, while balancing global standards with local needs enabled effective humanitarian responses. AI and technology improved workflows, forecasting and emergency readiness through iterative user feedback while strategic collaborations fuelled sustainable innovation. In a world where emergencies don’t wait, innovation can’t either. By embedding technology, data and forward-looking partnerships into its operations, WFP helped set a new benchmark for efficient, effective and accountable humanitarian assistance.
Learn more in our 2024 Year in Review
By Lucy Bloxham
The WFP Innovation Accelerator sources, supports and scales high-potential solutions to end hunger worldwide. We provide WFP colleagues, entrepreneurs, start-ups, companies, and non-governmental organizations with access to funding, mentorship, hands-on support, and WFP’s global operations.
Find out more about us: http://innovation.wfp.org.
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