The WFP Innovation Accelerator World Food Programme

ShareTheMeal is WFP’s award winning app that allows smartphone users to provide children with vital nutrition with a simple tap on their phones. Free to download, the app is a pioneering way for people to join our efforts in creating a world with zero hunger. By the end of 2016, over 780,000 users worldwide have already donated more than 11 million meals.

In the Middle East, WFP is using innovative approaches to train people whose access to food is unreliable. Working with Syrian refugees as well as host communities, we help them build a brighter future by developing digital skills and forging new livelihood opportunities together with the private sector. WFP connects the most vulnerable people we serve to new opportunities that help them and their families to provide for their most basic food needs.

WFP is testing hydroponics - a water-efficient and soilless cultivation technique - to understand what it takes to grow food in some of the world’s toughest environments. Three different pilots are being conducted in Algeria, Jordan and Peru as a means of ensuring greater food security for hungry families living in harsh and cramped conditions, such as refugee camps and dense urban areas.

WFP is testing blockchain technology to be able to deliver assistance more effectively – and potentially save millions of dollars. A pilot in 2016 confirmed the ability of blockchain to authenticate, record, and reconcile cash transactions in Pakistan. WFP is running an extensive test in Azraq refugee camp in Jordan, where Syrian refugees are redeeming their cash-based transfers on the blockchain-based system.

The Virtual Farmers Market, also known as Maano, is an app-based information platform where farmers’ surplus and buyers’ demand for grains are advertised and traded virtually. A pilot is being carried out in Zambia.

MAPS is a cutting-edge monitoring tool that optimises social protection programmes, such as nutritional support for mothers and young children, by capturing and visualising key information and outcomes in real-time. The purpose is to track improvements in the health of malnourished women and their children, and to create a consolidated database. It was created in collaboration with the Government of El Salvador, where the pilot is currently underway