2021: A year of

innovation

creativity

growth

impact

We’re proud to create a space where innovation can thrive. Take a look and see what we have been able to accomplish together with your support this year:

Despite another challenging year, 2021 was filled with impact and growth!

We’ve continued to double our impact year over year - building on the momentum we’ve achieved to bring us closer to our goal of positively impacting the lives of 100 million people by 2025.

Our portfolio of 52 projects positively impacted the lives of 9 million people across 67 countries in 2021 alone, through WFP’s humanitarian field operations. We received over 1,350 applications from 125 countries around the world, showing the reach and value our innovation programmes offer.

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Areas of Work

WFP is deploying bold new tools and approaches across its global operations to help solve hunger. Explore the disruptive innovations, technologies and business models driving change in several areas of work, such as smallholder farmers, supply chain or innovative financing.
DISCOVER OUR AREAS OF WORK
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Innovation Stories

Building on WFP’s legacy of innovation, the WFP Innovation Accelerator was launched in 2015 to pilot new solutions and scale promising innovations to disrupt hunger. Learn more about our approach to disrupting global hunger and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
GO TO THE STORIES
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Lessons Learned

Failures, setbacks and change are an inherent part of the innovation process. Lessons learned from responding to these challenges give ground for growth, foster novel ways of thinking and spur further innovation.
2021 LESSONS LEARNED
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Areas
of Work

Rwanda. May 2021. Immaculée, a smallholder farmer, removes weeds in a field of beans in Nyaruguru district. © WFP/Fredrik-Lerneryd.

Frontier Innovations

The Frontier Innovations programme at the WFP Innovation Accelerator explores game-changing innovations and new technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, autonomous vehicles, edge computing and robotics to support humanitarian and development assistance.

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Nutrition and School-Based Programmes

Every day, millions of children around the world go to school on an empty stomach—hunger affects their concentration and ability to learn. There are also millions of children—particularly girls—who simply do not go to school because their families need them to help in the fields or perform domestic duties.

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Supply Chain and Logistics

WFP is on the frontlines in the fight against hunger. Thousands of dedicated staff channel their expertise and use all means at their disposal – trucks, planes, ships, helicopters and even amphibious vehicles – to ensure that vast quantities of food and other essential items reach those who need them most.

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Innovative Finance

Achieving the Zero Hunger hinges on unlocking dramatically more investments over the next decade. New forms of sustainable financing, polling capital from public donors, philanthropies, development banks, and impact investors are crucial to closing the funding gap and achieving social impact at scale.

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Smallholder Farmers

Smallholder farmers produce most of the world’s food and are critical in achieving zero hunger. WFP helps build sustainable food systems by facilitating smallholder farmers’ access to productive assets and efficient post-harvest handling and storage techniques.

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Emergencies

Early-warning systems, a skilled emergency workforce ready to deploy, and our global supply chain capacity enable WFP to be one of the first on the scene when disaster strikes.

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Cash-Based Transfers

Where markets and financial sector are functioning, cash transfers can be an effective path to achieve food security and nutrition outcomes. WFP uses cash transfers to empower people with choice to address their essential needs in local markets, while also helping to boost these markets.

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Livelihoods and Climate Action

Food insecurity is highest in the most fragile environments, prone to disasters and exposed to recurrent shocks and crises, including extreme weather events. WFP helps food insecure communities manage natural resources sustainably, so they can meet today’s livelihood needs, safeguard these resources for future generations, and combat climate change.

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Innovation
Stories

India. July 2021. Launch of first dispensing unit in India. © Annapurti (GrainATM)/Nishant Aggarwal

Global SDG Acceleration: Innovating towards greater impact

As the Accelerator continues to utilize innovation to disrupt hunger, the team recognizes more efforts must be made to deliver innovative solutions that work towards several SDG goals to build a more resilient and effective ecosystem. The SDG Acceleration team is dedicated to discovering innovations that cover numerous SDGs in diverse contexts.

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Partnerships for innovation: Continuing to build a network of diverse partners

The impact we’ve been able to achieve this year and the growth we’ve experienced in the last six years were only possible because our donors and supporters believed in us. Read how we continued to build a network of diverse partners in 2021.

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Innovation Community: Expanding our global reach, building the Innovation Community

The WFP Innovation Champions Community is an initiative of the WFP Innovation Accelerator to support and empower WFP staff to become agents of change who drive innovation and accelerate solutions to end hunger. In October 2021, WFP marked the first anniversary since the launch of the Innovation Champions Community through a virtual Global Event, connecting more than 360 fellow community members from 66 countries around the world.

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Sourcing high-potential solutions for a world without hunger

Discover how we sourced innovations from around the globe. Whether it is a WFP staff member with a promising idea or a social entrepreneur who strives to contribute to a better world, WFP actively seeks impactful solutions to end hunger and enhance humanitarian work.

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WFP-X: WFP’s first ever exploration of moonshot innovation for urban food security in 2030 megacities

Moonshot thinking is the process of translating huge societal problems into tangible, future-ready solutions that can improve life for the many and the few. Discover how we launched the WFP-X Moonshot Launchpad Programme in collaboration with the WFP Innovation Hub Tanzania.

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EMPACT: Connecting youth to the digital economy - A graduated project from the WFP Innovation Accelerator

Since 2016, the WFP EMPACT project has provided digital and soft skills training to young refugees enabling them to build better livelihoods powered by their skills and talents. Discover the stories of three EMPACT graduates from Iraq, Syria and Kenya.

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A postcard from Zambia: how WFP is supporting innovations to disrupt hunger.

WFP has been present in Zambia since 1967, providing food assistance and strengthening the Government's capacity to address people's food and nutrition needs through food and cash-based transfer assistance to vulnerable and food-insecure people and on-demand logistics support. The WFP Innovation Accelerator supports the Country Office by facilitating the scaling up of projects such as Post Harvest Losses Venture, Farm to Market Alliance, H2Grow, Optimus, PlugPAY, and food dryers.

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In the Spotlight: The media coverage and awards we received in 2021

The global media coverage exemplified the growth of WFP Innovation Accelerator. Recognition also came in the form of numerous awards in innovation, data and operations.

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Lessons
Learned

Tanzania. April 2021. © WFP/WFP-X/k15.photos

Failures, setbacks and change are an inherent part of the innovation process. Lessons learned from responding to these challenges give ground for growth, foster novel ways of thinking and spur further innovation.
Design. Fail. Repeat. Scale

Modernizing our Ways of Working

Our working model had always been optimized to accelerate global innovations and startups in developing countries, which required us to be excellent in in-person accelerator programme delivery, strong partnerships inside and outside WFP, and remote collaboration. With the pandemic, we shifted our whole operating system towards virtual first operations, applying the same innovation principles to ourselves to constantly improve and modernize the way we work. By embracing and experimenting with cutting-edge organizational models and work methods such as Holacracy, and agile management, we continue to push the boundaries to achieve more impact for the people we serve through innovations.
The following lessons learned can be helpful for others thinking about New Ways of Working.

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New Ways of Working is much more than working remotely.
2.
Open communication may mean significant behavior change.
3.
Design meetings fit-for-purpose.
4.
The importance of retrospectives.
5.
New Ways of Working means change.

Strengthening Sourcing Capacities

Sourcing ideas from across the world, we leverage expertise, resources and bold ideas from cross-industry collaborators and prioritize projects that truly make a difference to the people we serve. Since the inception of the Innovation Accelerator, we have been proactively exploring the best way to identify the potential partners that match the needs from WFP global operations. We would like to share some of our best practices on how to strengthen the sourcing capacities to find the most suitable partners.

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Diversify the sourcing approach.
2.
Talk to potential users of innovation.
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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) should be the foundation.
4.
Collaboration with a specialist in the field enhances sourcing.

Designing an Innovation Programme

The WFP Innovation Accelerator provides WFP staff, entrepreneurs, start-ups, companies and non-governmental organizations with access to funding, mentorship, hands-on support and WFP operations. We navigated different ways to tailor our innovation programmes for our partners to find the best solutions for a more sustainable world. Here are some of our lessons learned on designing effective innovation programmes.

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Effective impact measurement relies on a solid Theory of Change, aligned impact parameters, and timely data collection.
2.
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) learning fosters distributed capacity building.
3.
Select mentors with direct experience and capacity.
4.
Pivots and a lean approach are even more important in highly volatile environments.