HAGA CLIC AQUÍ PARA VER LA VERSIÓN EN ESPAÑOL DE ESTA PÁGINA

HZero is the first innovation hub for the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region, focusing on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN). HZero aims to strengthen the local innovation ecosystems, promote alliances, catalyse efforts and capacities and facilitate resources to support innovations that positively impact the territories in LAC. It promotes disruptive and transformative innovation towards achieving Zero Hunger in the LAC region. The WFP Country Office in Colombia manages the hub.

Despite the significant progress in reducing hunger rates during the last two decades, malnutrition and hunger have been back on the rise in LAC. This situation has been exacerbated by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has dramatically affected poverty and food security.

Against this complex background, establishing the HZero regional innovation hub provides a powerful platform connecting WFP and its partners in a combined effort to accelerate progress towards SDG 2: Zero Hunger

 

Our working areas
  • Accelerate disruptive solutions in FSN that empower and benefit communities, women, youth and children, smallholder farmers and migrants by organizing and running innovation programmes;
  • Foster FSN innovation at the territorial level by facilitating linkages, knowledge exchange and resources to strengthen local economies and markets;
  • Consolidate an innovation community in FSN in the LAC region by promoting an innovation culture, facilitating exchanges and fostering collaboration among actors contributing to FSN.
Key activities
  • Run innovation programs to incubate and accelerate disruptive and transformative solutions in FSN;
  • Map, document and promote innovative solutions in the LAC region;
  • LeadFSN innovation events and open innovation challenges;
  • Execute programs to promote innovation at the territorial and community level;
  • Explore innovative financing mechanisms.

For more information about the Hub, please contact us at hzero.lac@wfp.org

 

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.

Our Impact - HZero is part of the WFP global innovation network

The network has positively impacted the lives of 9 million people in 2021 alone by accelerating and scaling innovative solutions to fight hunger worldwide. 

From Colombia, HZero contributes to the global impact by supporting life-changing FSN solutions and helping the most vulnerable populations in LAC. 

 

Highlights 2021 - 2022

HZero Launched the innovation programme Acelera HZero 2022-2023, which supports up to 20 innovative FSN projects through a bootcamp and six-months acceleration programme. 

HZero is supporting RELAI - iNNpulsa Open Innovation Challenge on enhancing the traceability of agri-food chains, launched in February 2022. 

HZero delivered the first LAC region edition of the WFP's Innovation Bootcamps. Eight innovative projects were selected for a journey of ideation, project design, and innovation. After the bootcamp, four of them continued to be supported by the acceleration programme with technical and financial support.