United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Innovation Challenge 2023 – USD 100,000

Today, over 828 million people – more than one in ten of the world’s population – still go to bed hungry each night. The number of people facing acute food insecurity has reached a record high of 345 million, up from 135 million in 2019. More than 900,000 people worldwide are fighting to survive in catastrophic hunger/one step away from famine. The cost of delivering food assistance has reached unprecedented levels due to soaring prices of food and fuel. The combination of increased expenses for food and transportation, worsened by the economic consequences of the pandemic, climate change, and the conflict in Ukraine, has made food inaccessible for millions of people, placing significant strain on WFP’s operations.

This edition of the WFP Innovation Challenge seeks to identify and support disruptive social innovations that address key challenges in the fight against hunger. We are particularly interested in solutions for humanitarian assistance and supply chain resilience as we aim to ensure that every donor dollar goes further in addressing hunger, while reducing the need for ration cuts. Additionally, we are looking for innovative solutions that foster close collaboration with the private sector to combat the global food crisis together.

We encourage all creative and passionate individuals, teams, and organizations to submit their innovative solutions that can help eliminate hunger, build resilience to shocks and stress, improve access to safe and nutritious food, advance equitable livelihoods and youth engagement, strengthen climate change adaptation in food systems, and enable greater resilience for vulnerable communities in an increasingly adverse and unpredictable environment.

Together, we can work towards achieving our goal of zero hunger and transform the lives of those who need our help the most.

Benefits

The WFP Innovation Accelerator has a track record of organizing 51 flagship innovation bootcamps to date, supporting over 440 teams to rapidly refine their innovations, field testing over 100 solutions within WFP operations, and bringing 22 disruptive social innovations to scale, reaching 37 million people in 2022 alone.

Selected teams:

● will be invited to take part in a three to five days long WFP Innovation Bootcamp and Pitch Event;

● will have the opportunity to apply for the WFP Sprint Programme, a six-month acceleration programme providing up to US$100,000 in equity-free funding, mentorship, and connections to our global field offices in 120 countries and territories;

● may qualify for further funding and support, if they are scaling innovations that have proven their concepts and value for social impact.

Eligibility Requirements

For this edition of the Innovation Challenge, we are looking for both low and high tech solutions that enable early planning and effective delivery of relief assistance. We also encourage strong “wildcard ” entries. We aim to identify and support exceptional innovations from around the world that hold the potential to address these challenges on a significant scale.

WFP’s current innovation priorities are listed below:

1. Preparedness and Prevention

2. Effective Relief Assistance

3. Supply Chain Resilience

Applications will be scored according to a standard set of criteria set by the WFP Innovation
Accelerator, including:

● alignment with WFP operational priorities and the impact towards the Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger;

● the level of innovation the solution brings to WFP and the humanitarian sector at large; and,

● indicators that the solution can be

Interested but don’t feel your innovation is ready yet? Don’t let this stop you! We accept applications on a rolling basis throughout the year, and applications received past this deadline may still be considered for future programmes in 2023.

Application Process