Action Center Ways to Get Involved

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the largest humanitarian organization on the planet, feeding over 100 million people in 80 countries. From emergency relief to long-term resilience initiatives, we’re the world’s first responder. For this work, WFP received the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.

WFP doesn’t just deliver food, we also administer highly specialized nutrition treatments and operate malnutrition prevention programs. In 2019 we reached over 16 million high-risk pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and young children with nutrition interventions.

WFP operates the largest school meals program in the world, feeding more than 17 million children throughout the year. We also support existing school feeding programs in 65 countries, benefitting an additional 39 million children.

Gender equality is at the core of our programs, and more than 50% of the people we serve are women and girls. For example, in our small-scale farmer training programs, over half of the participants are women. If they had equal access to resources, these female farmers could feed as many as 150 million people.

WFP helps people build their self-reliance through skills training and public works projects. This includes thousands of miles of irrigation and wells for the poorest communities. Last year, we built or repaired over 50,000 community assets like these. And during the pandemic, we rolled out hand washing and sanitation stations at all of our food distribution points.

Where we work, most of the foods people eat require cooking and water often needs to be disinfected by boiling. The vast majority of hungry people do so by using wood to make fire, putting them at all kinds of risks. WFP promotes modern forms of energy, like stoves and solar electricity, and is implementing 106 different energy programs in 36 of its country offices.

More than half of the world’s hungriest people are small-scale farmers, and globally, they form the majority of people living in poverty. We work tirelessly to connect these farmers to local markets, which we’ve done in over 40 countries. We also purchase more than $37 million dollars worth of food from small-scale farmers every year, supplying them with a steady source of income.

Innovation is at the core of our work. We use mobile phones to transfer money to refugees. We use iris scans to identify beneficiaries. We use hydroponic farming to grow food in impossible places. We use drones and amphibious vehicles to reach isolated communities. We use blockchain to deliver cash. We never stop looking for more effective ways to ensure nobody goes hungry.

Social protection (aka safety nets) is the best tool we have to cope with the risks that vulnerable people face, such as poverty, poor health and food insecurity. WFP works closely with local governments to implement and strengthen programs like these, especially related to emergency response, school meals and nutrition.

By definition, to build a world with Zero Hunger we must build food systems that are sustainable. WFP tackles this on multiple fronts, including planting drought-resistant crops, training farmers in sustainable farming techniques, and rebuilding communities to withstand extreme weather. Always, our goal is to help people become self-sufficient.

We deliver 24 billion lifesaving meals every year, which adds up to a lot of packaging. Reducing our footprint has taken many different forms — from using fewer colors on packaging to avoid ink pollution, to optimizing the thickness of cardboard boxes, to removing a metallic layer in our food packets to prevent the release of toxic fumes if burnt. We are committed to delivering food in the most responsible ways possible.

WFP is at the forefront of extreme weather, and we work hard to help people adapt and cope with their changing climates. From early warning systems and crop insurance to land rehabilitation and dam building. In the last decade, almost half of our emergency and recovery operations have been in response to climate-related disasters, at a cost of $23 billion.

In coastal communities, fishing is a primary source of income and food. But when storms strike, fisheries often become flooded and people lose access to fishable shoreline. WFP builds ponds, dams and fish farms to restore natural water ecosystems and provide families with a sustainable source of nutrition.

WFP’s Food Assistance for Assets (FFA) initiative teaches people to build or restore community assets that will improve their long-term food security. Local men and women work on projects like roads, wells and bridges in exchange for food, cash or food vouchers. Last year we invested $610 million in these activities and rehabilitated an area of land twice the size of Singapore.

WFP was awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of our efforts to combat hunger, to help build a world free of conflict and to prevent the use of food as a weapon of war. We know that wherever there is conflict, there is hunger. And where there is hunger, conflict often follows. WFP is there before, during and after the upheaval to help communities build back stronger.

More than 190 member states signed on to the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, and WFP is active in more than 80 of them. We interface with hundreds of local, national and international organizations – all working towards the same collective vision. Each of our efforts supports the others’ to build a cleaner, healthier, more equitable future.