Eastern Africa

The IGNITE Innovation Challenge supports and funds innovative local ventures that can enhance food security in South Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Somalia and Ethiopia. So far, across the region, innovation challenges have supported more than 75 ventures with over USD 2 million in grants. These ventures provide employment and market access for smallholder farmers and WFP beneficiaries, reducing the humanitarian caseload.

The IGNITE Seed Research and Development Food Lab aims to support early-stage entrepreneurial teams across Eastern Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda) in building skills and experience in innovation, whilst building the local ecosystem of academic and research institutions working to develop and commercialise local solutions. 

The IGNITE Research and Development Lab works with a local private sector partner to prioritize operational challenges, then use the innovation process to research and solve them by adapting or building locally suitable solutions.

The IGNITE Internal Innovation Safari/Pathfinder supports country offices to innovate to solve programme and operational challenges, leading to increased efficiencies and effectiveness.

IGNITE Innovative Finance brings locally and regionally suitable commercial and nontraditional financing options to support innovations and WFP’s operations.

Supported by the IGNITE Innovation Hub of Eastern Africa, WFP Ethiopia runs the IGNITE Food Systems Innovation Challenge 1.0 which aims to support locally-sourced solutions to address food insecurity and climate change challenges in the country and to empower local entrepreneurs operating in the food systems value chain.

The country office aims to Improve food systems and build resilience, supporting WFP programme teams and contributing to WFP Kenya’s country strategic plan to foster innovation and innovative methodologies to achieve SDG 2 and 17.

The Rwanda Country Office is positioning innovation as a cross-cutting enabler of its strategic plan, with a strong focus on developing innovative financing initiatives. Core activities include project management for innovation, innovation sourcing and financing, culture change and knowledge management initiatives, and acceleration support for external ventures. WFP IGNITE Innovation Hub for Eastern Africa supported, the office is piloting the “Climate Smart Agriculture for Youth” initiative, to empower 2,500 young farmers in Rwanda to adopt sustainable farming practices to boost productivity, income and climate resilience. In parallel, the Post-Harvest Management innovation is testing integrated post-harvest solutions to reduce food losses and improve livelihoods.

Supported by the WFP IGNITE Innovation Hub for Eastern Africa, the Pathfinder Challenge is an internal WFP Innovation Challenge that invited WFP employees to identify and prioritize impactful problems and proposed innovative solutions that enhanced efficiency and effectiveness, in line with WFP Somalia's 2024 priorities.

WFP South Sudan aims to Identify and support local innovative solutions that enhance climate resilience and food security for local populations through training, coaching, mentorship and funding.

WFP’s first field innovation hub was established in Tanzania in 2017. Now in its sixth year, the hub has laid the groundwork for catalyzing Tanzania’s innovation ecosystem and changing the way WFP approaches both current and future operations. The hub’s work is closely aligned with the objectives of WFP Tanzania’s country strategic plan, which centers around supporting the Government of Tanzania in its effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, and in particular the Zero Hunger 2030 agenda. The hub’s current focus areas are in smallholder agriculture, market access and supply chain, nutrition, emergency preparedness and response, social protection, and support to refugee populations.