Keeping people alive is essential but not enough. WFP also empowers individuals and communities to live healthy and productive lives. At stake is their ability to make choices for themselves and contribute to the prosperity of their nations. For everyone to have a fair chance, we must lift first those furthest behind, ensure assistance reaches people fast, and harness technology to support the widest possible access to food.
Empowering women and girls
Discrimination against women and girls means that in many places, they are the last to eat. It may be that they cannot own land. Or that despite their traditional role in handling food, cultural norms deny them a say. Or else that the lion’s share of resources is reserved for men and boys. Or even that the process of obtaining, say, firewood for cooking may expose women and girls to sexual violence. Whatever the roots of this imbalance, WFP systematically works to redress it, and places gender concerns at the heart of its work.
Countries where WFP gave women more say in how food is shared in the household
Earlier availability of food
Donors’ pledges often take a while to process. But hunger does not wait. It does not move in tandem with budgets. Nor does malnutrition: with every day lost in fighting it, repercussions worsen over time. For WFP, prompt intervention is a constant pursuit. Whether we have the cash in hand or not, we must act fast. By 2016, advanced financing tools allowed us to deliver the food nearly two months ahead of the funds being cleared.
Days head start in getting food to those in need
Innovating against hunger
Ending hunger by 2030 is a vision to inspire a generation. But this vision will not come to life if the world limits itself to tried and tested methods. This is why WFP has set out on a path of constant renewal. Last year saw a large expansion of our new SCOPE platform – an end-to-end digital system that matches the bio-data of people we assist with the benefits they receive.
million
People assisted by WFP registered in the SCOPE digital platform by end-2016
In mid-2016, WFP’s Innovation Accelerator opened in Munich, aiming to generate and scale up anti-hunger solutions. It has already given birth to projects such as hydroponic (or soilless) agriculture in the deserts of Algeria, Jordan and Peru, or the use of cutting-edge block chain technology for cash transfers. By 2017, WFP had linked up with Silicon Valley’s tech community to crowdsource “moonshot” (or groundbreaking) pathways to Zero Hunger.