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At the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, we actively invest in scaling innovative solutions that can help break the cycle of crisis and response and build sustainable solutions to end hunger. We also work to strengthen the capacity of country offices to leverage innovation and data, increasing the efficiency of our operations and the effectiveness of the value chains in which we collaborate with Governments. 

WFP is always looking for new innovative partnerships and invites collaboration from the private and public sectors to address humanitarian challenges. Strategic investment in WFP innovation will enable us to expand our reach and integrate innovation more deeply into our operations and solutions.

Innovation Advisory Services LACRO
Panama Farm2go
Enabling Innovation Leadership in the Field
Innovation capacity building in Country Offices
We develop innovation leaders at the field level by creating learning spaces where local teams can build the confidence and capability to drive innovative solutions aligned with their Country Strategic Plans (CSP).
Panama Farm2go 2
Scaling up Innovations
Catalytic financing and Strategic advisory
We foster the strategic implementation and scaling of innovative solutions that address field programmatic demands. This service may include catalytic financing and specialized technical assistance.
Innovation Panama
Connecting Innovators
Community of practice and leadership for Innovation
We promote a culture of leadership for innovation in the region by creating regional forums, both in-person and virtual, to share knowledge and experiences, build communities of practice, and strengthen leadership skills in innovation.
PANAMA

 

Innovation Project Portfolio

Ancestral Markets (Colombia)

This project consists of a platform to identify and support initiatives that come "from the heart of the community" and have an important and sustainable development potential linked to food security, nutrition, and markets. It aims at supporting creative and innovative initiatives that leverage the community's ancestral knowledge, that empower women and value elders’ wisdom, and that will help translate the rich community's cultural heritage, values, and products into sustainable socio-economic development opportunities.

LivingWaters Systems LLC (United States)

This solution comes in the form of a low cost, portable, rainwater harvesting system for refugee camps and off grid settlements. Rainwater is the cleanest source of naturally occurring water, and by allowing families to collect it from their own roof, they can maintain a clean source of water right at their doorstep. Although rainwater is naturally clean, the project can service ancillary products and recommend a three-step filtration process to remove any detritus that may get washed off of the roof.

School Feeding Management App (Guatemala)

This project seeks to connect home grown farmers to schools to enhance school meals and nutrition by building an entire demand and supply network using technology and a reliable network and data management platform that assures transparency, traceability, and data permanency, while positioning WFP as a strategic player for school feeding.

DignifAI (Colombia)

A Do Tank of Private Sector solutions for the creation of Employment with Dignity in Latin American BOP communities. Its mission is the inclusion of Latin America’s vulnerable populations into the formal economy through AI micro work. By investing in training and recruiting these people to perform data annotation tasks will help them generate income and develop the digital skills they need to springboard them up the Employment Integration Ladder.

Cocina con Causa (Perú)

Deliver valuable and user-friendly information on good nutrition to families in Peru. Following 3 years using different channels to promote good nutrition and healthy eating habits, they seek to create a new product that continues to improve the nutrition of households in Peru, not least in a challenging post pandemic context. The project is a technological bridge between accurate information and families with nutrition needs.

Groasis (Colombia, Chad, and Algeria)

Offers a solution using Growboxes and Waterboxes to grow trees and vegetables using less than 90% of water if compared with drip irrigation while achieving a survival rate of the planted materials of at least 90%. A technology that uses simple boxes to grow a productive tree and surrounding plants considerably reducing water usage and hence making farming possible in dry areas.

Farm Direct (Perú)

A tool powered by blockchain technology to create dynamic digital cooperatives specifically for the most marginalised groups -female smallholders and youth - who have limited profiles in global food value chains increasing increase their financial independence, food security, and incomes scaling-up their on-farm diversification products and facilitating market access, payments, and digital records utilising blockchain.

Woman in a storefront holding up food products. Photo: WFP/Jessika Camargo

Bancalimentos (Colombia)

This project is based on a unique model of high economic social impact. Thousands of people are fed in exchange for consignations of solid and organic waste without using any money. The project supports entities, companies and institutions in the proper management of their waste and through the transformation of waste builds a sustainable model that has provided a positive contribution to the global goal of reduction and total eradication of poverty in Colombia.

Highlights 2024 - 2025

USD 600,000 in catalytic funding, in cooperation with the Innovation Accelerator, to finance the scaling of digital solutions.

High-impact regional workshop “Leadership for Innovation" in Guatemala attended by 25 participants from all 13 country offices of the region plus the regional office.​

2 open-innovation contests led by Guatemala and Bolivia, seeking innovative solutions and business models to integrate into their Country Strategic Plans’ activities.

The Innovation Mindset series—co-led by HR and Innovation in collaboration with WFP Colombia's Innovation Team—aims to foster a culture of innovation by empowering teams to turn challenges into opportunities through creative and collaborative thinking.