Slides Framework

Changing Lives

WFP's strong emphasis on changing as well as saving lives was evident across the countries it served in 2019, providing a cornerstone for sustainable development, resilience to disasters and increased stability. WFP worked at the individual and community levels, while also strengthening institutions that provide basic services to populations in need. Through its country capacity strengthening efforts, WFP was able to enhance food security and nutrition policies, programmes and systems in 48 countries.

School feeding

WFP overhauled its school feeding portfolio in 2019, helping to build a coalition to plan, coordinate and advocate for more and better support to schoolchildren. Our ten-year school health and nutrition strategy, with more than 80 partners, aims to reach 73 million children living in extreme poverty in 60 countries, who do not have access to national school feeding programmes.

WFP will scale up programmes in crisis-hit countries, while equipping governments in more stable contexts with knowledge and skills to take over school feeding in the long term. In Bangladesh for example, we supported the Government in developing a national school meals policy, as part of its shift towards full ownership.

  • 17.3 million

    children fed by WFP in 59 countries in 2019, 50% of whom were girls, through nutritious meals, snacks or take-home rations

  • 4.5 million

    children in L3 and L2 emergencies were reached through school feeding programmes

  • 40 countries

    have home-grown school feeding programmes, where nutritious foods are sourced from local smallholder farmers

    • Nutrition

    While calories can save lives, good nutrition changes lives. WFP’s priority was women and children, with an emphasis on the 1,000 days between conception and a child’s second birthday, when nutrition lays foundations for a lifetime. We distributed 287,000 mt of specialized nutritious foods in 50 countries, and provided counselling and messaging on nutrition and health in 44 countries.

    We continued to scale up the use of fortified staple foods to address vitamin and mineral deficiencies – known as “hidden hunger”. For example the governments of Bangladesh and India committed to mainstreaming fortified rice into social safety nets.

  • 17.2 million

    people were reached through malnutrition treatment and prevention activities, including 10.8 million children and 6.4 million women and girls

  • 47%

    of the direct beneficiaries of WFP nutrition activities were in countries experiencing Level 3 or 2 emergencies

  • 74 countries

    implemented nutrition-specific/nutrition-sensitive programmes

    • Asset creation and resilience building

    Asset creation and livelihood programmes allowed people to address immediate food needs while improving resilience to future climate-related and other shocks. Vulnerable households received 190,000 mt of food and over US$168 million in cash-based transfers and vouchers, in return for activities including the building or improvement of feeder roads and land.

    WFP applied its “three-pronged approach”, or 3PA, to this work in over 35 countries, involving three connected processes for designing programmes: integrated context analysis, seasonal livelihood programming and community-based participatory planning.

  • 9.6 million

    people in 50 countries benefited from WFP’S food assistance for assets and training programmes

  • 127,000 ha

    of land improved, 7,000 ha of forest planted and 8,700 km of feeder roads built or repaired

  • 34,000

    people helped to mitigate the impact of drought in the ‘Dry Corridor’ of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras through food assistance for assets programmes

    • Smallholder farmers

    WFP's support to smallholder farmers in 2019 reflected their status in accounting for more than half of all food producers in much of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

    Growing and predictable demand from WFP and other buyers encouraged smallholders to invest in agriculture, and spurred investment and service provision by governments, the private sector and development organizations.

  • 40 countries

    where WFP helped smallholders to gain entry into markets

  • 58,500 MT

    of food commodities sold from Smallholder farmers with WFP's support for a total US$19.1 million

  • 96,600 MT

    procured by WFP from smallholder farmers for a total of US$37.2 million, which contributed directly to the smallholders’ livelihoods

    • Cash transfers

    WFP continued to increase its use of cash transfers, reaching a record US$2.1 billion in 2019 and providing people with more choice in meeting their multiple needs.

    A 2019 survey revealed that the Emergency Social Safety Net in Turkey had helped prevent 1.7 million refugees falling deeper into poverty. WFP, the European Union, the Government of Turkey and the Turkish Red Crescent launched the project in 2016, providing monthly cash allowances to mostly Syrian refugees.

  • US$2.1 billion

    record of cash distributed by WFP across 64 countries in 2019, an increase of 18% compared to the previous year

  • 78%

    of WFP’s cash-based assistance was provided to extremely food-insecure and malnourished people living amid large-scale emergencies

    • Climate resilience

    Insurance protection helped farmers manage the risks posed to their crops by adverse weather, and to make better-informed investments in production. WFP helped more than 93,000 farmers, 60 percent of whom were women, in 7 African countries to access US$12.2 million worth of insurance through the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative.

    WFP's use of forecast-based financing saw us provide cash transfers via mobile banking to 4,500 vulnerable households in northern Bangladesh, three days ahead of forecasted severe flooding. Families spent the money on food, materials for strengthening their homes and transport to safety.

  • US$33.5 million

    value of the drought insurance provided by 5 governments with the support of WFP for 1 million people, through the African Risk Capacity Replica programme

    • Capacity building

    We worked with governments and other partners to develop their capacity to manage disaster risk, improve food security and sustain change beyond WFP’s support, providing them with actionable food security information, data and analysis, and training and expertise.

    In India, we supported the Government’s targeted public distribution system, the largest food safety net in the world, reaching 800 million vulnerable people each month. In Kenya, we built on the handover of school feeding to the Government in 2018 by training more than 1,400 Government staff and helping to launch a national school health policy.

  • 45 countries

    where WFP enhanced food security and nutrition policies, programmes and system components

  • US$610 million

    invested by WFP in capacity strengthening and service delivery

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    INNOVATION