Geotar

Geographic targeting is the most common method used by WFP to identify areas and populations in most need of humanitarian assistance. Staff in WFP Country Offices responsible for conducting targeting, often lack high-quality, up-to-date data. This makes assistance imprecise and may exclude the most vulnerable people in need.

GeoTar is a user-friendly geospatial vulnerability profiling and targeting tool for decision-makers. It incorporates factors like climate change, agricultural capacity, service utilization, and access to generate detailed vulnerability maps. These maps enhance operational decisions in WFP Country Offices by reducing reliance on scarce, manually collected household data. GeoTar improves geographic targeting accuracy by up to 30 percent and saves each country up to US$100,000 by eliminating additional assessments.
 

As GeoTar scales, the team plans to integrate multispectral drone data for even greater precision. Currently, GeoTar is implemented in Afghanistan, Chad and Bangladesh, with plans to expand to Ethiopia, Lebanon, Somalia, the Sahel region, Colombia and other WFP operations.

Targeting is at the core of all WFP programmes. GeoTar aims at enhancing targeting and prioritization decisions through the adoption of user-friendly vulnerability profiling and analysis tools. By leveraging advanced geospatial technology, the system facilitates a more efficient and effective allocation of resources, ultimately contributing to the WFP's mission of combating global hunger and improving food security. In 2024, WFP plans to assist a total of 142.5 million people through implementation of programmes across 82 countries. The pilot alone will impact the lives of more than 10 million people across 4 countries. Geotar also on average delivers about US$100,000 (approx) cost savings per country operations.