Digital tools are making a big impact on nutrition among COVID-vulnerable populations
By Vida Gabe
Two billion people in the world do not have the adequate intake of key micronutrients their bodies need due to the lack of access to nutritious food. While micronutrient deficiencies go frequently unnoticed because their symptoms are often unseen, their impact is far from invisible.
Iodine deficiency prevails as the world’s leading cause of brain damage. Iron deficiency brings severe sequelae for mothers and babies. Vitamin A deficiency remains a widespread public health problem. …
Empowering existing social innovators with additional resources to accelerate their ideas to eliminate hunger in Nigeria is our best chance to reach Zero Hunger by 2030.
by Fabienne Moust, WFP Nigeria Head, Capacity Strengthening & Policy Coherence Unit.
The Zero Hunger Roundtable is a platform facilitated by WFP Nigeria and the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs in Nigeria, where we bring everyone together — the private sector, development agencies, Government — to look at collective solutions that can contribute to zero hunger in the country. It was created as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it goes way beyond that. There are lots of sustainable solutions needed for Nigeria. One of the big questions that the Roundtable asked included: ‘What can we do to support people…
A World Food Programme (WFP) pilot project is set to push internet access during emergencies to new heights thanks in part to drone technology.
By Tom Mallah
For humanitarians in an emergency, connectivity helps underpin coordination efforts. For someone who’s lost it all, staying in touch with family harbors hope, and knowing what local support is available is often a first step towards recovery.
While demand for reliable connectivity in humanitarian contexts is growing steadily, access is often constrained to emergency operations centers and a community hotspot. But that might be about to change.
Overcoming locality
Patrick McKay, WFP Unmanned…
The WFP Innovation Accelerator partnered with Google Research to set up the SKAI platform to automatically assess damage post disasters and speed up humanitarian response.
By Fiona Huang
Special thanks to Joseph Xu, Pranav Khaitan, Jihyeon Lee, Wenhan Lu, Zebo Li, Steven Chun, Devora Berlowitz, and Maolin Zuo from Google Research who have devoted themselves to developing SKAI and this blog post together with the WFP Innovation Accelerator.
Following disasters, the World Food Programme (WFP) works to assess the magnitude of damage, the needs of local communities, and our humanitarian intervention plans to mobilize resources and coordinate emergency response efficiently.
New systemic approaches and innovative solutions are needed to put us on track toward a world free from hunger. Therefore, this year’s World Food Programme (WFP) Innovation Challenge, announced in May, called for innovators to rethink the global food system. We saw a lot of excitement for the food systems challenge, with 502 eligible applications from 95 countries offering access to untapped potential to transform food systems.
By Gulia Rakhimova and Sanjna Sudan
The year 2020 challenged everything that enables food to travel from farms to our plates. Known as “food systems,” this network comprises all activities from farming and…
In the first in a series of stories from graduates of EMPACT — the World Food Programme innovation project connecting students at risk of hunger to the global digital economy — Layth, 21, talks of his dreams of being an actor and taking centre stage.
By Gulia Rakhimova
More than half the world’s 690 million people facing acute hunger live in countries affected by conflict. By the young age of 21, Layth had experienced love and loss, and life under the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). …
How limited WFP seed funding grew the Telecommunications Security Standards (TESS) project into a powerful inter-agency service
By Emma Wadland
On a sun-baked hill overlooking Kigali, Rwanda, workers from dozens of humanitarian agencies set up telecommunications repeaters side by side, dotting the drumlin with equipment. It was 1994 and the country was embroiled in genocide.
Despite the heightened security risks, there were no defined security communications standards or procedures keeping humanitarians safe.
In fact, it was typical to see United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations show up to emergencies, as they did in Rwanda, with their own equipment and protocols…
Join our new cohort of innovators and implement your ideas as part of WFP’s global mission to end hunger
By Gulia Rakhimova
The World Food Programme (WFP) Innovation Accelerator works to leverage the skills and talent of innovators around the world to find, pilot and scale novel solutions to hunger. We’ve launched the WFP Innovation Challenge 2021 in search of cutting-edge innovations to rethink our food systems. Do you have one? Apply here before 7 June 2021 at 11:59 pm (CEST)!
Why rethink our food systems?
- 690 million people go to bed hungry each night — yet 2 billion people are overweight.
- Around 40 percent…
CODA grew from an idea to a digital innovation that has transformed malnutrition management and can inspire innovators striving for social impact
By Gulia Rakhimova and Federico Naccarato
When we think of innovation, our minds jump to Silicon Valley and high-tech companies. Yet innovation is also happening in the humanitarian and development sector, at an increasing pace, continuously, and at scale.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has a long-standing culture of innovation, from its first airlift in 1962, to pioneering the use of email in humanitarian emergencies in the 1990s, and distributing aid through e-vouchers in the early…
Click here for the Spanish version of this article.
By Linda Nyemba
The World Food Programme (WFP)’s innovation bootcamps focus on supporting bold solutions that address the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger (SDG 2) by 2030. However, our recent WFP Innovation Challenge focused on a priority area — the Latin America and Caribbean region. This region has faced some of the toughest challenges in 2020 including a migrant crisis, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and severe impacts on the food security and nutrition of millions of vulnerable people in South America.
The WFP Innovation Accelerator is delivering its 35th Innovation Bootcamp in partnership with the WFP Colombia…
WFP Innovation Accelerator
Sourcing, supporting and scaling high-impact innovations to disrupt hunger.
