Lessons learned in a year of driving progress and hope
WFP country offices are powering groundbreaking initiatives to continue improving the efficiency and effectiveness of WFP’s operations. Their insights showcase the strength of WFP colleagues in overcoming complex challenges with innovative solutions.
By Yvonne Ingui
In 2025, WFP operated under unprecedented pressure, with over 318 million people facing acute hunger across 67 countries and crises growing in scale and complexity. Innovation became critical to sustaining and improving delivery. It drove efficiency gains through AI‑enabled logistics and improved the speed and accountability of cash and registration systems in emergencies. At the same time, it supported the scaling of nutrition, food systems and resilience solutions to reach tens of millions of people.
At the center of all these results, WFP’s extensive field presence and country offices continue to find different and new ways of solving the key challenges they face. In fact, the launch of WFP’s first organization‑wide Innovation Strategy aims to harness innovation across all levels of the organization. This will continue to support country offices as the engines of innovation, scaling impactful solutions and fostering strong partnerships.
13 WFP country offices across three regions shared reflections on what worked, what limited progress, and what ultimately enabled innovation to deliver value at scale. While contexts differed, the lessons converged around six recurring themes that give insight into how innovation can deliver impact at scale.
1. Innovation delivers the most value when embedded in core programming
In 2025, we demonstrated once again that Innovations that were co-designed with programme teams showed faster uptake, clearer ownership and stronger pathways to scale. This, coupled with the application of human-centered design principles, ensured that innovation was grounded in WFP’s operational realities.
In Colombia, 2025 was a challenging yet transformative year for innovation, as fewer resources were available to implement projects. This pushed the now smaller team to integrate innovation more intentionally into ongoing programmes, rather than running it as a separate workstream. WFP Colombia partnered with startup IDENTI to develop a voice‑coding technology to reduce errors caused by manual spreadsheet‑based registration of refugees. The pilot demonstrated high identification accuracy while reducing errors and manipulation risks. Improved data consistency and real‑time tracking confirmed its value for programme monitoring and design. This result will improve operation alignment and enable a clearer pathway to scale.
2. Partnerships are central to scale, sustainability and legitimacy
Almost all country offices emphasized that partnerships — particularly with governments, the private sector and broader innovation ecosystems — were the primary drivers of scale, sustainability and legitimacy. This effect was two fold. First, innovations that were aligned with national governments’ institutional frameworks were more likely to scale and be sustainable. Second, when backed by clear evidence and scale pathways, these partnerships unlocked financing, which was critical in developing and sustaining innovations.
In Kenya, the majority of funding within the innovation portfolio was raised with existing WFP funds. This enabled WFP Kenya to support nine innovation projects and three innovation programmes and sustain them over time. Access to funding emerged as a key factor enabling portfolio growth.
In India, WFP supported the government to optimize the country’s flagship Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), which helps the government serve the most poor and vulnerable communities. By using advanced route and procurement optimization and last‑mile automation, WFP helped generate US$26 million in cost savings and reduced CO₂ emissions by 35 percent across 30 states. What began as targeted pilots was rapidly scaled through close collaboration with the Department of Food and Public Distribution, which embedded WFP’s optimization tools into national operational guidelines.
3. Local context and co‑design matter more than technological sophistication
In 2025, innovation success was driven less by the technical sophistication of a solution and more by its relevance to local realities. Countries emphasized that innovations grounded in human‑centered design and local contexts were more likely to be adopted, sustained and scaled.
WFP Somalia delivered the IGNITE Food Systems Challenge in partnership with the Somalia Innovation Response Lab (SOMRIL). The innovation challenge supported the transformation of Somalia’s food systems by identifying, funding and accelerating locally driven, market‑ready innovations. Through this challenge, WFP and SOMRIL reviewed more than 120 applications and selected five innovators; each receiving US$40,000 in funding. Tailored technical support helped scale solutions that strengthen food value chains and promote livelihood‑driven resilience.
IGNITE reflects WFP’s increasing emphasis on locally led innovation, and market‑based approaches. This positions homegrown entrepreneurs as central actors in improving food access across Somalia.
4. Evidence, data and learning enable scale and influence
WFP country offices repeatedly underscored the importance of evidence generation and learning as enablers of scale, policy influence and resource mobilization. Innovations backed by data-driven outcomes and cost‑benefit narratives were more likely to attract internal buy‑in, donor interest and government adoption.
WFP Uganda’s solar irrigation work demonstrates how early, decision‑oriented evidence can accelerate scale and influence. Working with Omia Agribusiness and Tulima Solar, WFP Uganda deliberately tracked performance data from the first production season in 2025, capturing concrete metrics on yields and profitability. Early results showed average profits of approximately US$296 per farmer group during the January–July 2025 production period. These early indications, combined with evidence of rapid cost recovery, demonstrated the model’s potential for commercial viability and provided the data to make decisions and engage partners. Because of this, the team scaled the approach to 5,000 refugee and host‑community farmers. By grounding decisions in early, credible performance data, Uganda was able to move the initiative beyond a pilot and position solar irrigation as a promising, market‑oriented solution.
5. Capacity, leadership and internal systems enable innovation
Dedicated innovation leadership and employees were critical in translating operational challenges into actionable pathways for innovation. Colleagues emphasized the importance of community, peer learning, and convening to share knowledge. Regional hubs and shared platforms enabled teams to exchange practical experience, adapt tools across contexts, reduce duplication and accelerate uptake.
WFP South Sudan’s experience illustrates how structured capacity building, convening and internal coordination systems enable innovation to move beyond isolated ideas into a scalable practice. With support from the IGNITE Innovation Hub of Eastern and Southern Africa, WFP South Sudan implemented the IGNITE Food Systems Innovation Challenge 2.0, where it identified and celebrated 11 locally-led enterprises. It also created a platform that connected micro, small and medium Enterprises (MSMEs) with governments, donors and investors, strengthening institutional visibility and partnership pathways.
This was complemented by a targeted entrepreneurial bootcamp, which equipped participating MSMEs with core business and investment‑readiness skills. The final product showcase that brought together important stakeholders to translate learning into concrete opportunities for scale. Together, these interventions highlight the role of internal systems and capacities in sustaining innovation. They enable locally driven solutions to move from early-stage ideas to scalable, investable ventures.
6. Sustainability and scale must be designed from the start
Countries highlighted the need to design innovations from the onset with long‑term ownership and transition arrangements in mind. This includes avoiding single‑vendor dependence and ensuring clear handover mechanisms.
WFP Dominican Republic’s Automated Analysis System for weather events and issuance of Operational Alerts (ANACAONA) illustrates the importance of embedding digital solutions within existing national systems. This approach supports sustainability and scale from the start. The system integrated official government and meteorological data, automated end‑to‑end analysis from forecasts to alerts, and aligned with emergency preparedness workflows. It moved beyond a standalone pilot to support real‑time operations during the hurricane season. As winners of the 2026 WFP Innovation Awards, this innovation clearly demonstrates that successful innovation is about designing for continuity, ownership and scale from day one.
Creating a future for locally-driven innovation
As WFP moves into the next phase of its first Innovation Strategy, these lessons point to the need to embed country‑led innovation as a core operational capability. This means prioritizing early integration, continuous learning, and intentional design.
This, in addition to the growing uptake of its solutions by over 100 humanitarian and development actors, confirms the value of designing solutions with a clear pathway for external adoption and collective outcomes.
Innovation efforts will remain aligned with global scaling priorities so that proven approaches are systematically adopted, adapted, and scaled. This will ensure innovation continues to enhance WFP’s efficiency, effectiveness, and impact for the communities it serves.
Learn more about our innovation impact in the 2025 Year in Review.
The WFP Innovation Accelerator was launched by the UN World Food Programme in 2015 to source, implement and scale high-impact innovations. From its base in Munich, Germany, the WFP Innovation Accelerator has grown to become one of the world’s leading social impact startup accelerators.
Find out more about us: http://innovation.wfp.org.
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