Driving progress and hope: Five innovation highlights from 2025
As 2025 comes to a close, we wanted to share a snapshot of how innovation has been making a difference at WFP this year. It has been a year of immense challenges: 318 million people face acute hunger across 67 countries, with nearly two million on the edge of famine. Yet, innovation has been a source of hope, helping us reach more people, more efficiently, when it matters most.
Read about five innovation highlights from 2025:
1. Delivering faster and smarter: SCOUT
Getting help to people in need starts with smart choices about what to deliver, when and how. SCOUT, our artificial intelligence‑powered logistics system, combines data and market intelligence to guide these decisions. In 2025, SCOUT saved USD 3 million, bringing total cost savings to USD 5 million since the project began. Its new artificial intelligence forecasting engine cut planning costs by 10 percent, doubling efficiency gains from last year. As SCOUT scales globally, it is set to save over USD 25 million annually, resources we can reinvest directly into reaching more people.
2. Speeding up emergency response: Building Blocks
Building Blocks has grown into the world’s largest humanitarian solution built on blockchain technology. In 2025, 159 organizations across multiple countries used it to coordinate assistance, collectively saving USD 287 million, avoiding unintended assistance since 2022. By connecting partners on a single secure platform, Building Blocks improves transparency, streamlines access and ensures households receive the right support faster. Now part of our Frontiers portfolio, the team is working to strengthen the technology and drive wider adoption across WFP and with partners.
3. Fortifying food for families: Sanku
Sanku equips small and medium flour mills with simple machines that add essential vitamins and minerals to maize and wheat flour. This means families in rural Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya can rely on their daily flour to provide the nutrients they need, especially children, who can grow healthy and strong. In 2025, Sanku reached 32 million people, twice as many as last year, turning everyday meals into a source of strength for millions more families.
4. Innovating with AI: The Strategic AI Partnership for Humanitarian Actions
What happens when the scientists behind the world’s most famous particle accelerator join forces with WFP? In 2025, our strategic partnership with CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology and the Government of Luxembourg marked its first anniversary. By combining CERN’s cutting-edge artificial intelligence expertise with WFP’s operational know-how, we are creating new ways to strengthen humanitarian action.
Together, we piloted the Registration Anomalies Detection tool, showing how artificial intelligence can safeguard resources and ensure assistance reaches those who need it most. Next year, we will scale this and other open-source innovations across WFP operations to unlock even greater impact across the wider humanitarian ecosystem.
5. Scaling technology‑driven solutions: The Humanitarian Innovation Accelerator
Supported by the Government of Luxembourg, our Humanitarian Innovation Accelerator Programme brings together innovators, humanitarian organizations, the private sector and partners to tackle urgent challenges with technology‑driven solutions. The first group of ventures that closed their sprint in 2025 reached more than 260,000 people. Their tools were adopted by 15 humanitarian organizations and raised over USD 1.2 million in additional grant funding. One example is Jangala, whose plug‑and‑play internet solution delivered high‑speed connectivity to displaced communities in Kenya.
Furthermore, we welcomed international guests at our WFP Innovation Forum in Munich, Germany at the sidelines of Munich Security Conference and just opened the Regional Innovation Hub for West and Central Africa in Dakar, Senegal.
Together, these stories show how innovation strengthens every part of WFP’s work, boosting efficiency and delivering greater results for the people who need it most.
None of this would be possible without the dedication of our colleagues, partners, innovators and supporters. We are deeply grateful for their commitment and collaboration. Each of them plays a vital role in creating impactful solutions that save and change lives.
As we move into 2026, our focus stays simple: improving lives through impactful innovation. With the launch of the first-ever WFP Innovation Strategy, we are charting the next chapter of innovation across the organization, demonstrating how it can help WFP deliver even greater impact for the communities we serve.
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The WFP Innovation Accelerator sources, supports and scales high-potential solutions to end hunger worldwide. We provide WFP staff, entrepreneurs, start-ups, companies and non-governmental organizations with access to funding, mentorship, hands-on support and WFP operations.
