Congratulations to the winners of the 2026 WFP Innovation Awards!

After receiving 40 applications from WFP teams across all regions and HQ, five innovation teams stood out, showcasing exceptional progress and scale of innovative solutions.

These innovators are solving real challenges across WFP operations with integrity, curiosity and dedication. Across diverse contexts, their solutions make WFP more efficient, effective and resilient.

The solutions show the breadth and depth of our operations. Some solutions are using AI and data to drive decision making, while others are digitalizing humanitarian operations themselves. We are also innovating to build climate resilience and anticipatory action approaches, as well as strengthening social protection systems in hand with governments. With each solution, we are becoming efficient and effective at scale.

The teams, representing Enterprise Deduplication, People Portal, ANACAONA, School Connect and UN System Smart AI Mobility, shared their winning reactions, insights on innovation at WFP and their paths to scale in the coming months after being selected for the award back in April 2026.

How does it feel to win the WFP Innovation Awards?

When Country Director Alex Robayo broke the news in the Dominican Republic that ANACAONA was selected, a wave of celebration broke out on the office floor. The Mali Country Office, who develop Enterprise Deduplication, also mentioned that after a challenging time period in the office and the country, the team had a moment of pure joy to celebrate their efforts.

“The good news on the award was very powerful and instrumental to lift up spirits. It helped staff realize that instead of being victims of external factors, they first and foremost are team members capable of creating change to make the world a better place”

-Aboubacar Dicko, Communications Officer, WFP Mali, Enterprise Deduplication

Several teams mentioned the gratitude they have for their colleagues across teams and countries in WFP who support their solutions, showcasing WFP’s vast collaborative capacity and how deeply innovative thinking is embedded across our organization.

“Winning this award has felt incredibly rewarding and validating for all the hard work invested across teams and regions. The team was thrilled and proud to see our collaboration recognized at this level.”

-UN System AI Smart Mobility team

For that, we would like to thank colleagues across WFP for contributing to these innovations and many more, working together tirelessly to make our organization stronger.

What role does innovation play in humanitarian work?

“Our joint team believes that innovation is the key in humanitarian work, to make work and impact more time- and cost-efficient. It allows organizations to respond more effectively to complex and rapidly changing challenges.”

-UN System AI Smart Mobility team

The winning teams have all agreed that innovation only matters when it is solving a real, contextualized challenge with the people WFP supports at the center.

“Something surprising about WFP is just how many ways there are to solve the “last-mile” challenge. You’d think some problems are just too complex, but in reality, we almost always find a way to reach the people who need support the most. What stands out to me is how everything comes back to people.”

-Nathaly Ramirez, Head of Programme, WFP Dominican Republic, supporting ANACAONA

This is where innovation comes in; to find the path forward, even in the most complicated of circumstances. Innovation can mean many things, from use of cutting-edge technology to finding new ways to share knowledge or process information. For humanitarian work, the important element is not the solution itself, but its impact on people and on WFP’s ability to deliver assistance efficiently and effectively.

“For us, tools like School Connect illustrate that innovation is not only about new technology, but often about simplifying and rethinking how and where information should be captured, validated and used.”

-Hugo Marchand, School Meal Digital Solution Project Manager, WFP Kenya, School Connect

“The real test of any innovation is never how sophisticated it is; it’s whether it reaches the people making decisions early enough, and clearly enough, to change what happens on the ground.”

-Nathaly Ramirez, ANACAONA

What are the next steps for the winning innovations?

The winners are spending the next months working closely with the WFP Innovation Accelerator to continue their paths to scale.

UN System AI Smart Mobility: Implementing real-time recommendations for ride sharing, improving the user experience with improved recommendations and accessibility, expanding AI-driven insights to new locations and agencies according to UN80 and S5 efficiency initiatives.

“Our ambition is to make ridesharing and inter-agency carpooling the new norm and the future of UN System Mobility.“ -UN System AI Smart Mobility

Enterprise Deduplication: Scaling photo-based deduplication beyond its early pilots, strengthening usability with new user-friendly interfaces, improving tool performance and capacity building for full utilization of the tool.

“We want to ensure that all stakeholders are able to effectively understand, adopt, and fully utilize the tool. This ownership is critical to sustaining the innovation and maximizing its long-term impact.” -Moussa Diouf, Enterprise Deduplication

People Portal: Expanding to more operations, enhancing interoperability with WFP systems, and refining features based on real world impact.

“Recent challenges of the past months have served as a catalyst for strengthening security practices and positioning the platform to scale effectively across both emergency and long term contexts.” -People Portal

School Connect: Focusing on rolling out two new features: a fully automated and customizable data quality checker and a role-based native in-app dashboard and data download feature.

“This feature will make it easier for governments, cooperating partners and WFP units alike to access –all in one place- tailored information to support decision-making.” -Hugo Marchand, School Connect

ANACAONA: Strengthening the use case in the Dominican Republic and preparing for a transfer to government counterparts. Separately, adapting ANACAONA to the context in Haiti and exploring complementary models for other use cases.

“We will deliver a functional version in time for the upcoming cyclone season in Haiti, ensuring that WFP and key stakeholders can begin using vulnerability-informed exposure intelligence for preparedness and early response.” -Nathaly Ramirez, ANACAONA

What advice would you give to colleagues looking to implement innovation into their work?

What’s next for the WFP Innovation Awards?

The five winning teams have already launched their collaboration with the WFP Innovation Accelerator team, receiving tailored innovation support to help solve challenges and push their solutions forward. Throughout the year, we will be highlighting each team’s story on the WFP Innovation Accelerator channels (LinkedIn, X).

Thank you to our winners and all of the applicants for their time applying and their contributions throughout the year integrating innovation into every workstream at WFP. We are honoured to be amongst these inspiring colleagues.

We would like to also recognize the great efforts across the organization to make WFP as innovative, efficient and effective as possible. We hope these initiatives inspire even more solutions and innovation in the coming months!

The WFP Innovation Awards was launched for internal applications from WFP teams in October 2025. After a rigorous selection by an advisory board consisting of WFP experts and Advisory Board Members, four of the five winners were selected in April 2025. A subsequent WFP-wide vote was conducted to select the fifth and final winner, Enterprise Deduplication, as the employee choice award.

The WFP Innovation Accelerator was launched by the UN World Food Programme in 2015 to source, implement and scale high-impact innovations. From its base in Munich, Germany, the WFP Innovation Accelerator has grown to become one of the world’s leading social impact startup accelerators.

Find out more about us: http://innovation.wfp.org.
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The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has announced a call for applications for the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) edition of the Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator. This US$10 million initiative, funded by the Adaptation Fund, was launched in 2024 in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with its second cohort in the Asia-Pacific region in 2025. The programme overall will run until 2029, and aims to identify, support, and scale solutions that help vulnerable communities adapt to the growing impacts of extreme weather events. It offers small grants to ventures in developing countries that are disproportionately affected by climate shocks such as droughts, floods, heatwaves, and storms.

“Extreme weather and food insecurity are closely interconnected across Latin America and the Caribbean, where communities face growing challenges that threaten livelihoods and resilience. Through the AFCIA partnership, we prioritize support for innovators and solution finders from communities most at risk. The third edition of support under the WFP-implemented AFCIA Programme in the region will help source and support local impactful solutions, ensuring innovators have the tools they need to adapt, strengthen resilience and thrive in an increasingly uncertain environment.” — Saliha Dobardzic, Lead for Programming and Innovation at the Adaptation Fund.

Empowering local Innovation

This year too, the programme will award grants of up to USD 250,000 each, disbursed in phases (based on performance and results following a competitive selection process) to up to ten ventures offering affordable, inclusive and region-specific climate adaptation solutions. The focus is on innovations that strengthen food systems and build resilience in Latin America and the Caribbean, home to communities already experiencing the impacts of climate-driven disasters and extreme weather.

“We’ve seen that some of the most impactful climate adaptation solutions come from people who understand their local food security and nutrition challenges best. Through AFCIA, WFP is supporting innovative ideas that help communities build resilience, strengthen food security, and adapt to a changing climate, because climate and food systems are deeply connected.” — Richard Choularton, Director, Climate and Resilience Service, World Food Programme.

Inception workshops: laying the groundwork

In June 2026, WFP Country Offices in Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Peru, in collaboration with the WFP Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Office (LACRO) in Panama and the WFP Innovation Accelerator, hosted Inception Workshops to identify local climate challenges and co-design problem statements. These workshops brought together humanitarian organizations, innovation ecosystem stakeholders, and government representatives.

Advocating for this programme, Alex Robayo, country director, WFP Dominican Republic shared, “Protecting the most vulnerable communities, preserving our ecosystems, and strengthening the resilience of productive systems requires us to act with vision, innovation and commitment. Every decision we make today must contribute to increasing our capacity to address climate challenges and build a safer, more inclusive, and more sustainable future for generations to come.”

Meanwhile in Peru, Gabriela Alvarado, WFP Peru country director, said:

“Closing climate innovation gaps in Peru is key to improving food production and access to food for the most vulnerable populations facing climate shocks. By mobilizing technical and financial resources, we can scale local solutions, create opportunities for climate-focused enterprises, and strengthen resilient food systems that ensure the sustainable management of natural resources.”

Call for applications is open

The official call for applications has been launched on 20 August 2026, and is running until 6 September, on the WFP Innovation Accelerator website. Ventures operating in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Peru, or with scalable solutions for these countries are encouraged to apply. The webpage will include details on priority themes, eligibility criteria, and the Sprint Programme for selected innovations.

“AFCIA is not just a funding mechanism. It is a platform for connecting solutions with implementation, innovation with scale, and local solutions with systemic impact. The objective is to strengthen more resilient food systems, increase the adaptive capacity of communities, and protect livelihoods from climate shocks” — María Guimaraes, country director, WFP El Salvador.

Building on Success of Past Two Years

Since its inception in 2024, this WFP run AFCIA programme has supported a range of impactful innovations across the MENA and Asia-pacific regions. These included, but were not limited to, initiatives in agribiotech and soil health, smart and digital farming, water technology and infrastructure, irrigation systems and waste innovation, collectively reaching thousands of people.

“Climate adaptation is ultimately about setting up the most vulnerable people in a better position to respond to growing impacts of extreme weather events. The Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator programme is critical to create large-scale impact to solve critical challenges in our country offices.” — Bernhard Kowatsch, Director of Global Accelerator and Ventures at WFP.

The WFP Innovation Accelerator sources, supports and scales high-potential solutions to end hunger worldwide. We provide WFP staff, entrepreneurs, start-ups, companies and non-governmental organizations with access to funding, mentorship, hands-on support and WFP operations.

Find out more about us: Visit our website. Subscribe to our newsletter. Follow us on LinkedIn and X. Watch our videos on YouTube.

The conversation around development finance is changing. There is growing momentum behind a shift from aid to trade, from grants to investment, with increasing attention on how financial tools can help in addressing food insecurity. However, access to finance does not, by itself, ensure that families have enough to eat, that diets improve or that communities become more resilient.

This was the starting point for a recent collaboration between the WFP Innovation Accelerator and graduate students from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), which explored how inclusive finance and impact investing influence food security outcomes. Looking across contexts and interventions, the work asked the question: under what conditions does finance actually contribute to food security?

The answer points not to finance alone, but to how it is embedded within broader systems. From here, a clearer picture emerges of when finance works — if designed based on needs, targeted and embedded in the ecosystem — and where it falls short.

Finance works throughout the food system

Innovative Finance influences food security across multiple levels of the food system, and should be tailored to each level while strengthening linkages between them.

Consider a smallholder farmer gaining access to credit. The potential benefits are clear: investment in inputs, improved yields, higher income. However, access itself is not always straightforward. Financial services may be physically distant, poorly suited to farmers’ needs or simply inaccessible. Even when credit is available, its impact is dependent on the broader system: if local markets are unstable, infrastructure is weak or buyers are absent, those gains may not fully translate into better food security. Access alone can be valuable, but it becomes far more powerful when supported by strong linkages across the wider food system.

Now consider a different entry point: an agribusiness investment that strengthens a value chain. This is valuable in its own right: market opportunities expand and infrastructure improves. However, vulnerable farmers may still remain excluded if they lack the means to participate. Strengthened value chains become far more impactful when they are embedded within a connected system that links producers, markets and local food needs.

These examples illustrate a common theme: finance operates across interconnected layers of the food system. Inclusive finance acts primarily at the household, the micro- level, shaping livelihoods and resilience, while impact investing operates at the meso-level of businesses, value chains and market systems, strengthening infrastructure and connections within the food system. Both approaches have value on their own, engaging at different levels of the system, but together they can achieve more impact in advancing financial inclusion and food security. Food security outcomes are strongest where these layers are intentionally aligned and designed with a systems lens, allowing interventions to reinforce one another rather than operate in isolation.

Why WFP?

WFP operates across these layers, working with households, markets and public and private sector institutions through its innovative finance programmes such as SheCan, WFP Innovation BRIDGE and World Food Invest. These initiatives build on WFP’s broader programmatic and supply chain interventions, adding a dedicated financing layer to strengthen their impact. As a neutral convenor within the ecosystem, WFP is also uniquely positioned to bring together diverse actors and foster collaboration across the system. This system-wide presence enables WFP to promote innovative finance at multiple levels simultaneously and to strengthen the linkages between them.

Measuring what matters: outcomes, not outputs

Financial outputs do not necessarily translate into food security outcomes.

In practice, success of financial inclusion and impact investing interventions is often measured by what is easiest to count: loans disbursed, capital invested, enterprises supported. Yet these are outputs, not outcomes.

For a family facing food insecurity, the relevant questions are different: Can they reliably access food? Has the quality of their diet improved? Are they better able to cope with shocks? The research highlights a recurring gap between financial metrics and food security outcomes. Increased income does not always translate into improved nutrition, and business growth does not necessarily benefit the most vulnerable. Therefore, results measurement frameworks for financial inclusion initiatives and impact investments focused on food security need to include impact parameters related to food security outcomes to understand how one influences the other.

Why WFP?

WFP’s work starts from target outcomes. Through its Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping systems and field-based monitoring, it tracks changes in food consumption, resilience and vulnerability, linking interventions to what ultimately matters. This is complemented by tools like HungerMap Live, WFP’s AI‑enabled platform that combines real‑time and predictive data on food security, to identify where hunger is worsening and enable earlier, more targeted, anticipatory action. We are actively working on adapting these established methodologies and impact measurement approaches into our financial inclusion impact investing initiatives.

Impact depends on design and targeting

The impact of finance is not automatic; it depends on deliberate targeting and design.

First, targeting shapes who benefits from innovative finance initiatives. At WFP, this is guided by a data-driven understanding of vulnerability, food insecurity and exposure to shocks, enabling interventions to prioritize those most in need while also identifying key leverage points within food systems. In doing so, targeting directs finance both to the populations facing the greatest constraints and to the parts of the system where it can drive the greatest impact.

Second, design goes beyond how support reaches people; it seeks to understand why populations and value chain actors cannot yet access appropriate finance. This involves working with country offices, financial institutions and government actors to assess needs, map existing efforts and analyse capital supply, demand and the enabling environment. Based on these insights, innovative finance solutions are tailored to specific contexts. Access to credit or investment without the necessary skills, knowledge and support can increase exposure to risk. By contrast, when paired with technical assistance, from financial literacy training, to business development and market access, finance becomes part of a broader pathway to stability.

Why WFP?

WFP combines evidence-based targeting with embedded technical support, designed based on needs assessments. Through initiatives such as SheCan, WFP works directly with entrepreneurs and programme participants to understand the missing piece in the system that ensures that financial access translates into sustainable livelihoods. In parallel, through the WFP Innovation Accelerator and initiatives such as WFP Innovation BRIDGE, investment readiness support helps ventures and value chain actors strengthen their capacity to access and effectively deploy capital, further closing the gap between finance and impact.

Matching tools to context

The effectiveness of financial tools depends on the context within which they are used, and when thoughtfully sequenced across the emergency to resilience continuum, they can reinforce one another and maximize impact.

Food insecurity is not static. A community facing an acute crisis has very different needs from one that is recovering after a shock or growing. In emergencies, food and cash assistance remain essential to meet immediate needs. Beyond this, innovative finance supports recovery by enabling households to restart livelihoods as conditions stabilize, and contributes to longer-term resilience by strengthening households, businesses and value chains. These investments not only improve food security over time, but also reinforce the systems that make future responses more effective.

In practice, this means combining financial access with the right type of support at the right time. For example, through initiatives such as SheCan, women entrepreneurs are not only connected to finance but also supported with business development and market linkages, helping ensure that financial access translates into sustained income and improved resilience. Similarly, facilities such as WFP Innovation BRIDGE aim to connect enterprises to capital while strengthening the surrounding ecosystems, addressing constraints beyond finance alone.

Introducing financial instruments that do not match the needs of their recipients, can undermine their positive effects. Aligning tools with context is essential.

Why WFP?

With operations spanning emergency response, recovery and resilience-building, WFP is able to sequence and adapt interventions over time, maintaining a consistent focus on food security outcomes.

A catalytic role for WFP

The growing focus on innovative finance reflects an important shift. But without deliberate alignment, capital may not reach those most affected by food insecurity. Or it may fail to address the underlying drivers of vulnerability.

WFP plays a transformative role in this space: convening public and private actors, aligning incentives and grounding financial approaches in evidence and accountability to ensure that finance works in service of food security.

The question is no longer whether finance has a role in addressing food insecurity. It does. The more important question is how it is used. The findings from the WFP–LSE collaboration point to a clear direction: finance is most effective when it is embedded in systems, targeted where needs are greatest, supported with technical assistance and measured against real outcomes. Keeping food security at the centre of this agenda is essential. Without that anchor, the shift from aid to investment risks losing sight of those it is meant to serve.

WFP continues to build on this work, further refining its impact frameworks and scaling its financing initiatives to reach more people in more effective ways. This is not the end, but the beginning, and we invite partners and practitioners to come on this journey with us.

By Nora Evans, Karoline Rast, Radek Halamka, Lucy Bloxham

The WFP Innovation Accelerator sources, supports and scales high-potential solutions to end hunger worldwide. We provide WFP colleagues, entrepreneurs, start-ups, companies and non-governmental organizations with access to funding, mentorship, hands-on support and WFP’s global operations.

Find out more about us: http://innovation.wfp.org.
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By Sanjna Sudan, Bethany Plant and Michelle Joseph

Humanitarian needs continue to rise while resources struggle to keep pace. Conflict, climate shocks and displacement are pushing humanitarian systems to their limits, requiring organisations to do more with less. Innovation is often presented as part of the solution, but turning promising ideas into impactful solutions in some of the world’s most complex and volatile environments is far from straightforward.

In 2023, Humanitarian Innovation Accelerator (HIA), a partnership between the WFP Innovation Accelerator, the Government of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg and Austrian Development Agency, was initiated to close that gap. In its first cohort, sixteen innovations were chosen from across the globe to present at a global stage in summer 2023. Eight of them were selected to be a part of an intensive sprint programme, combining financial backing with technical and methodological support to help technology-powered solutions take root in challenging humanitarian contexts.

What emerged from this cohort was a broader body of learning about what genuinely helps innovation succeed in fragile and complex settings, and where the sector still has work to do. This article distils the strongest insights from the ventures and programme, offering practical takeaways for anyone working in or supporting humanitarian innovation.

#1 Credibility opens doors that funding alone cannot

One of the clearest lessons from this cohort is that institutional backing matters as much as financial support. This is particularly true for ventures operating in refugee camp settings or navigating complex stakeholder ecosystems. Local buy-in is often the hardest barrier for innovators to overcome, and it is not something that can be solved with capital alone.

This is where established humanitarian actors can add value. By leveraging local and regional World Food Programme (WFP) innovation hubs and country offices, the HIA programme was able to help ventures navigate regulatory hurdles and build relationships with critical local stakeholders. These doors would otherwise have remained closed to early-stage teams working in unfamiliar environments.

Beyond practical facilitation, ventures also reported a less tangible but equally important benefit: being linked to a recognised programme signalled legitimacy to potential partners, which in turn unlocked further opportunities.

For example, the programme team worked with WFP Jordan to facilitate meetings between Neurotech and UNHCR Jordan, ensuring the venture’s project adhered to regulatory requirements. Similarly, support was provided in submitting letters of support to help Waterkit secure a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ugandan government.

#2 Consistent coaching keeps ventures moving through roadblocks

An innovation’s overall success more often than not, stalls through a slow accumulation of unaddressed roadblocks. Sprint teams in this cohort were clear that the structured, ongoing coaching they received was central to keeping their projects on track.

Regular coaching sessions gave ventures the focus and accountability needed to navigate setbacks without losing momentum, while access to a wider mentor network, including support from Google for Startups and Ernst & Young, brought additional expertise and perspective at key moments. This combination of steady guidance and specialist input appears to be a particularly effective model for early-stage humanitarian ventures, which often lack the internal capacity to troubleshoot problems alone.

“I would say up to about 75% of our additional funding can be attributed to HIA because most of the partners and funders want to support a system that is already being supported by someone else. They don’t want to be the first. It’s a different story for WFP that they’re willing to test new solutions and support. Whenever I mentioned that we are under this programme they say, “oh wow, this seems to be a good innovation, there is something in here” ”, — Jacob Okello, Waterkit about the support and value they received as a part of the Humanitarian Innovation Accelerator.

#3: A strong community turns competitors into collaborators

Innovation support programmes can sometimes treat cohorts as a collection of individual ventures competing for the same limited attention. This cohort’s experience suggests a more meaningful model: building genuine community among participants.

From the in-person pitch event in Luxembourg, through virtual group sessions, to Acceleration Days in Dubai, ventures were given repeated opportunities to connect with one another, as well as with the wider SDGx community. These touchpoints did more than build goodwill. They created space for peer learning and, in several cases, led to formal collaborations between ventures that might never have crossed paths otherwise.

For programme designers, this is a reminder that the structure and rhythm of in-person and virtual convenings is a deliberate mechanism for value creation, and one that can multiply the impact of the support already being provided.

Startups in the HIA portfolio; WASDI and Data‑Pop Alliance, together with Jokalante (a startup from another WFP Innovation Accelerator SDGx programme), demonstrated strong collaboration potential. Their joint effort secured funding through the Mercy Corps Ventures Accelerator for a consortium project called OPAL for Floods. This AI‑powered, integrated data decision‑support system provides early flood warnings and enables cash transfers to communities in Senegal. It’s a strong example of how effective community engagement and cross‑startup collaboration can unlock meaningful impact.

#4 Networking is where partnerships and markets actually form

Across both sprint and non-sprint ventures, one theme came through consistently: networking opportunities were critical to unlocking partnerships and, in some cases, entirely new markets. These connections were not incidental; they were a direct outcome of the ecosystem events the programme organised.

This insight reinforces that acceleration support extends well beyond coaching and funding. Creating the right rooms, and the right introductions within them, can have a huge impact on a venture’s trajectory, sometimes more than any single piece of technical advice.

For example, Bleaglee expanded their market presence by offering their waste sourcing services to the Center for Growth in Ghana, a connection made at the HIA Pitch Event organised in Luxembourg in 2023. Jangala formed a new partnership with SOS Villages d’Enfants following a connection made during Acceleration Days organised by WFP in January 2025 in Dubai.

#5 Staying flexible in humanitarian contexts

Implementing innovations in humanitarian contexts and active emergencies requires a high level of flexibility from everyone involved. These environments change quickly, and even the most robust planning and scoping processes cannot fully anticipate shifting realities on the ground. Regulatory changes, security constraints, and challenges accessing local partners can all impact implementation. In some cases project teams experienced changes in their operating environments that altered both needs and opportunities, requiring them to adapt their plans quickly.

A key learning is that funding partners, implementing teams, and startups must stay agile together, adapting plans as conditions evolve to ensure innovations can be deployed effectively. Flexibility should go beyond project delivery, and include funding and partnership arrangements allowing for adjustments as circumstances evolve. This may include adjusting project designs, reallocating budgets and extending timelines, all the while maintaining regular communication. This ensures that promising innovations can still deliver value even in rapidly changing conditions.

Taken together, these insights paint a clear picture of what effective humanitarian innovation support looks like in practice. Success depends as much on building credibility as providing capital, on structured coaching as much as funding, and on fostering a strong community as much as supporting the progress of individual ventures.

For the Humanitarian Innovation Accelerator, and for others designing similar initiatives, these lessons provide a practical roadmap for the future. As new cohorts are developed, they can help ensure that innovation support is not only well-intentioned but also better equipped to respond to the realities of humanitarian contexts..

The Humanitarian Innovation Accelerator Programme, a collaborative effort between the WFP Innovation Accelerator and the Government of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, seeks high-impact innovative solutions to address the pressing emergency and humanitarian challenges faced by vulnerable populations and humanitarian actors.

With a core focus on leveraging technology, this programme supports and nurtures solutions that can effectively tackle global challenges within the humanitarian sphere. Through a meticulous selection process, ventures and solution providers are chosen to receive comprehensive support including financial backing, technical expertise, and methodological guidance from the WFP Innovation Accelerator and its esteemed partners.

By Sanjna Sudan and Regina Rehorovska

In 2024, the WFP Innovation Accelerator launched a search for startups to join the first cohort of the Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator. With a focus on finding climate solutions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the programme began with an in-depth Inception Workshop with the WFP Country Offices of Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. During the workshop, the Innovation Accelerator worked closely with the WFP country office colleagues, government partners and nonprofit stakeholders to identify and define the region’s most pressing climate challenges requiring innovative solutions.

After the workshop, we opened a call for applications that attracted several high‑performing startups already implementing or ready to implement climate adaptation solutions across the region. From this pool, ten startups were selected and invited to an in‑person bootcamp in Munich, and nine of them advanced into our Spring Programme.

What is the sprint programme?

The sprint phase is when startups begin receiving equity-free funding based on their venture maturity stage. For AFCIA cohort startups, this meant direct collaboration with one of the three MENA WFP Country Offices and ongoing support to implement their solutions in real operational contexts. To strengthen their pathway to scale, WFP also organized local and regional ecosystem events, including investor roundtables. These ensured that startups had the networks, visibility and resources needed to grow beyond the programme.

The initiative marked the first time WFP implemented a programme of this design, a unique model for the world’s largest humanitarian organization working in food security. Over nine to twelve months of the sprint, each startup experienced challenges, breakthroughs and moments of learning. We asked them to reflect on their journey, because learning, iterating and emerging stronger is at the heart of innovation.

Across nine diverse startups, spanning solar irrigation, bio-fertilizers, livestock management, water harvesting and precision agriculture, a set of hard-won, cross-cutting lessons emerged:

#1: Trust is the real adoption barrier, not technology

Across almost every venture, startups found that their biggest challenge was not whether the technology worked, but whether farmers trusted it enough to use it. Teams realised that demonstrations, field visits and repeated engagement worked far better than information‑only approaches. They saw that adoption is a social and behavioural process as much as a technical one, and it cannot be achieved through a single training session or product launch.

For example, Greener Herd, a mobile app that helps livestock farmers in some of the most food insecure areas in the MENA region manage their herds, learned that consistent, educational social media content can act as a low‑cost trust‑building tool. It allows farmers to observe results, engage at their own pace and adopt the solution when they feel ready, rather than feeling pushed toward early conversion into paying customers.

Similarly, Deploy Tech, which develops eco‑friendly, easy‑to‑transport concrete water tanks for rainwater harvesting and water management, discovered that in‑person demonstrations were far more effective than theoretical explanations. Farmers who watched a live installation, asked questions and saw the process firsthand, showed much stronger trust and interest in the solution.

#2: The product is only half the solution, systems are the other half

Several startups began their sprints with strong product validation in other contexts, but once they entered the field, they discovered operational gaps they needed to strengthen. Real‑world implementation showed that success depended not only on the technology itself but also on the systems around it, such as training protocols, quality assurance, site preparation and monitoring frameworks.

P‑Vita, a bioprocessing technology that converts Egypt’s agricultural waste, into valuable natural extracts, learned this firsthand. Working across multiple sites made it clear that Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and a strong Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) framework were essential if not core needs for scale readiness. Testing the innovation in different locations made it clear that reliable implementation depends not only on the product but also on strong local operational systems.

NoorNation, which transforms traditional flood irrigation into efficient solar‑powered systems through its Solar Irrigation as a Service (SIaaS) model in Egypt, learned that quick installation alone wasn’t enough. Demonstrating results like yield improvements required a full harvest season. Their ability to define the right indicators, supported by continuous monitoring, became essential. By turning operational data into early, trustworthy evidence, they strengthened farmer and partner confidence and set the foundation for successful implementation of the solution.

#3: Institutional coordination cannot be an afterthought

Across several sprints, startups learned that engaging early with government agencies, regulatory bodies and institutional partners is essential. When coordination begins late, external timelines, approval processes or seasonal factors can create delays that are difficult to recover from. In agtech, where implementation must align with agricultural seasons, early institutional engagement becomes a practical necessity rather than an administrative step.

Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies (AST), which cultivates microbes that help crops become more climate‑resilient and reduce the need for water and fertilizer, encountered this in Jordan. As an external startup operating from outside the country, aligning with local institutions added an extra layer of complexity. This resulted in some delays, causing them to miss the natural planting window. The experience underscored how agtech innovation success depends on aligning with nature’s schedule and on early, structured collaboration with local institutions.

Responsive Drip Irrigation Manufacturing (RDI) reached a similar conclusion. Their work in Jordan showed that validation through trusted institutions is essential for commercialisation and scale‑up. As an external startup coming from outside Jordan, establishing these partnerships required additional time and coordination. Initiating collaborations later in the sprint extended their readiness timeline. Both startups now treat institutional engagement as a core workstream that begins on day one.

“Our climate capacity improved because the sprint pushed us to connect the technical performance of the solution with climate adaptation outcomes in a more structured way. Through implementation in Jordan, farmer screening, monitoring, training, stakeholder meetings, and development of the business and scale-up model, we gained a stronger understanding of climate risk, local constraints in Jordan, affordability, and how to frame and measure adaptation benefits.”, shared Hadia Elamin, Vice President of Operations RDI Irrigation.

#4: Strong partners do not just open doors, they accelerate everything

When institutional and field partnerships worked well, startups saw benefits that built on each other: faster access to communities, stronger evidence generation, higher trust from beneficiaries and a shorter path from innovation to deployment.

For example, FarmGuru by VAIS, an AI‑powered precision‑agriculture platform. The team learned that digital access alone wasn’t enough for user adoption. Farmers, who hail from some of the most food insecure contexts, needed confidence‑building, clear explanations and trusted local support to turn app information into real decisions. Adoption improved only when onboarding, training and follow‑up were delivered through local coordination, workshops, and on‑ground personnel. These human‑supported structures turned simple registration into real retention and renewal, even when daily app use stayed low. These partnerships also strengthened gender inclusion. Although FarmGuru’s design was gender‑neutral, it initially didn’t reach women farmers. Irrigation and fertilisation decisions were mostly made by male household heads, and outreach channels didn’t address this. Partnerships with women‑led cooperatives and female extension workers would have created dedicated pathways for women’s participation. Future deployments now include gender‑specific onboarding targets and budgeting for female community mobilisers.

Remer, whose bio‑fertilizer Growth helps plants absorb nutrients more effectively and develop stronger roots that withstand climate shocks, found something similar. Many farmers had low literacy levels and relied heavily on traditional practices, so technical explanations alone were not enough. Adoption improved only when the team shifted to practical, visual, and demonstration‑based approaches, supported by trusted local networks. Their MoU with the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture, which was running a national post‑conflict awareness campaign at the time, made this possible. Through field demonstrations, simple messaging, and peer‑to‑peer learning, farmers could clearly see how Growth worked, and this hands‑on, low‑literacy engagement was what finally moved them from hesitation to real uptake.

#5: Early assumptions about users, products, and processes must be stress-tested

Several startups discovered mid‑sprint that some of their early assumptions needed to be revisited, which is the nature of iterative innovation. These assumptions included who their users really were, what product format worked best in the field and how their operational systems should function. If the assumptions were tested later in the process, the cost would have been much higher than testing them from the start. This is a part of how solutions evolve: learning, adjusting and improving as real‑world data comes in.

Partners with Sun, which created an industrial solar oven system to help bakeries and food producers reduce fossil‑fuel use, experienced this directly. They began the sprint with a system based on Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology designed to power a single oven. Once they tested it in real conditions in Lebanon, they found the CSP design was not practical. This led them to shift to a hybrid system using PV, batteries and hydrogen, which proved more modular and effective. On‑site monitoring then revealed that the combined system had far more capacity than expected, enough to power the entire bakery, not just one oven. These improvements were possible only because the team allowed field data to challenge their initial assumptions.

Taken together, these sprint experiences show that the gap between a working technology and a working solution is rarely technical. It is usually human, institutional and operational. The startups that navigated this gap most effectively treated adoption, partnership and process design as core deliverables, not side tasks.

For future sprint collaborations between WFP country offices and innovative startups, this points to a clear design principle: build in time and resources to foster trust with farmers from food insecure contexts, early institutional engagement and deliberate stress‑testing of assumptions before deployment begins.

The strongest innovations in this cohort were not always the most technically complex. They were the ones that listened closely to what the ground reality was telling them and adapted quickly.

The WFP Innovation Accelerator sources, supports and scales high-potential solutions to end hunger worldwide. We provide WFP colleagues, entrepreneurs, start-ups, companies,\ and non-governmental organizations with access to funding, mentorship, hands-on support and WFP’s global operations.

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By Yvonne Ingui

In 2025, WFP operated under unprecedented pressure, with over 318 million people facing acute hunger across 67 countries and crises growing in scale and complexity. Innovation became critical to sustaining and improving delivery. It drove efficiency gains through AI‑enabled logistics and improved the speed and accountability of cash and registration systems in emergencies. At the same time, it supported the scaling of nutrition, food systems and resilience solutions to reach tens of millions of people.

At the center of all these results, WFP’s extensive field presence and country offices continue to find different and new ways of solving the key challenges they face. In fact, the launch of WFP’s first organization‑wide Innovation Strategy aims to harness innovation across all levels of the organization. This will continue to support country offices as the engines of innovation, scaling impactful solutions and fostering strong partnerships.

13 WFP country offices across three regions shared reflections on what worked, what limited progress, and what ultimately enabled innovation to deliver value at scale. While contexts differed, the lessons converged around six recurring themes that give insight into how innovation can deliver impact at scale.

1. Innovation delivers the most value when embedded in core programming

In 2025, we demonstrated once again that Innovations that were co-designed with programme teams showed faster uptake, clearer ownership and stronger pathways to scale. This, coupled with the application of human-centered design principles, ensured that innovation was grounded in WFP’s operational realities.

In Colombia, 2025 was a challenging yet transformative year for innovation, as fewer resources were available to implement projects. This pushed the now smaller team to integrate innovation more intentionally into ongoing programmes, rather than running it as a separate workstream. WFP Colombia partnered with startup IDENTI to develop a voice‑coding technology to reduce errors caused by manual spreadsheet‑based registration of refugees. The pilot demonstrated high identification accuracy while reducing errors and manipulation risks. Improved data consistency and real‑time tracking confirmed its value for programme monitoring and design. This result will improve operation alignment and enable a clearer pathway to scale.

2. Partnerships are central to scale, sustainability and legitimacy

Almost all country offices emphasized that partnerships — particularly with governments, the private sector and broader innovation ecosystems — were the primary drivers of scale, sustainability and legitimacy. This effect was two fold. First, innovations that were aligned with national governments’ institutional frameworks were more likely to scale and be sustainable. Second, when backed by clear evidence and scale pathways, these partnerships unlocked financing, which was critical in developing and sustaining innovations.

In Kenya, the majority of funding within the innovation portfolio was raised with existing WFP funds. This enabled WFP Kenya to support nine innovation projects and three innovation programmes and sustain them over time. Access to funding emerged as a key factor enabling portfolio growth.

In India, WFP supported the government to optimize the country’s flagship Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), which helps the government serve the most poor and vulnerable communities. By using advanced route and procurement optimization and last‑mile automation, WFP helped generate US$26 million in cost savings and reduced CO₂ emissions by 35 percent across 30 states. What began as targeted pilots was rapidly scaled through close collaboration with the Department of Food and Public Distribution, which embedded WFP’s optimization tools into national operational guidelines.

3. Local context and co‑design matter more than technological sophistication

In 2025, innovation success was driven less by the technical sophistication of a solution and more by its relevance to local realities. Countries emphasized that innovations grounded in human‑centered design and local contexts were more likely to be adopted, sustained and scaled.

WFP Somalia delivered the IGNITE Food Systems Challenge in partnership with the Somalia Innovation Response Lab (SOMRIL). The innovation challenge supported the transformation of Somalia’s food systems by identifying, funding and accelerating locally driven, market‑ready innovations. Through this challenge, WFP and SOMRIL reviewed more than 120 applications and selected five innovators; each receiving US$40,000 in funding. Tailored technical support helped scale solutions that strengthen food value chains and promote livelihood‑driven resilience.

IGNITE reflects WFP’s increasing emphasis on locally led innovation, and market‑based approaches. This positions homegrown entrepreneurs as central actors in improving food access across Somalia.

4. Evidence, data and learning enable scale and influence

WFP country offices repeatedly underscored the importance of evidence generation and learning as enablers of scale, policy influence and resource mobilization. Innovations backed by data-driven outcomes and cost‑benefit narratives were more likely to attract internal buy‑in, donor interest and government adoption.

WFP Uganda’s solar irrigation work demonstrates how early, decision‑oriented evidence can accelerate scale and influence. Working with Omia Agribusiness and Tulima Solar, WFP Uganda deliberately tracked performance data from the first production season in 2025, capturing concrete metrics on yields and profitability. Early results showed average profits of approximately US$296 per farmer group during the January–July 2025 production period. These early indications, combined with evidence of rapid cost recovery, demonstrated the model’s potential for commercial viability and provided the data to make decisions and engage partners. Because of this, the team scaled the approach to 5,000 refugee and host‑community farmers. By grounding decisions in early, credible performance data, Uganda was able to move the initiative beyond a pilot and position solar irrigation as a promising, market‑oriented solution.

5. Capacity, leadership and internal systems enable innovation

Dedicated innovation leadership and employees were critical in translating operational challenges into actionable pathways for innovation. Colleagues emphasized the importance of community, peer learning, and convening to share knowledge. Regional hubs and shared platforms enabled teams to exchange practical experience, adapt tools across contexts, reduce duplication and accelerate uptake.

WFP South Sudan’s experience illustrates how structured capacity building, convening and internal coordination systems enable innovation to move beyond isolated ideas into a scalable practice. With support from the IGNITE Innovation Hub of Eastern and Southern Africa, WFP South Sudan implemented the IGNITE Food Systems Innovation Challenge 2.0, where it identified and celebrated 11 locally-led enterprises. It also created a platform that connected micro, small and medium Enterprises (MSMEs) with governments, donors and investors, strengthening institutional visibility and partnership pathways.

This was complemented by a targeted entrepreneurial bootcamp, which equipped participating MSMEs with core business and investment‑readiness skills. The final product showcase that brought together important stakeholders to translate learning into concrete opportunities for scale. Together, these interventions highlight the role of internal systems and capacities in sustaining innovation. They enable locally driven solutions to move from early-stage ideas to scalable, investable ventures.

6. Sustainability and scale must be designed from the start

Countries highlighted the need to design innovations from the onset with long‑term ownership and transition arrangements in mind. This includes avoiding single‑vendor dependence and ensuring clear handover mechanisms.

WFP Dominican Republic’s Automated Analysis System for weather events and issuance of Operational Alerts (ANACAONA) illustrates the importance of embedding digital solutions within existing national systems. This approach supports sustainability and scale from the start. The system integrated official government and meteorological data, automated end‑to‑end analysis from forecasts to alerts, and aligned with emergency preparedness workflows. It moved beyond a standalone pilot to support real‑time operations during the hurricane season. As winners of the 2026 WFP Innovation Awards, this innovation clearly demonstrates that successful innovation is about designing for continuity, ownership and scale from day one.

Creating a future for locally-driven innovation

As WFP moves into the next phase of its first Innovation Strategy, these lessons point to the need to embed country‑led innovation as a core operational capability. This means prioritizing early integration, continuous learning, and intentional design.

This, in addition to the growing uptake of its solutions by over 100 humanitarian and development actors, confirms the value of designing solutions with a clear pathway for external adoption and collective outcomes.

Innovation efforts will remain aligned with global scaling priorities so that proven approaches are systematically adopted, adapted, and scaled. This will ensure innovation continues to enhance WFP’s efficiency, effectiveness, and impact for the communities it serves.

Learn more about our innovation impact in the 2025 Year in Review.

The WFP Innovation Accelerator was launched by the UN World Food Programme in 2015 to source, implement and scale high-impact innovations. From its base in Munich, Germany, the WFP Innovation Accelerator has grown to become one of the world’s leading social impact startup accelerators.

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By Katarina Gocoliakova and Sanjna Sudan

At the UN World Food Programme, innovation is at the heart of what we do, shaping how we strengthen our operations and enhance our impact. This year, we launched the WFP Innovation Strategy 2026–2028, positioning innovation as a core enabler of how WFP delivers on its mission.

This strategy is a transformative roadmap to expand WFP’s reach and integrate innovation more deeply into operations over the coming years.

By placing innovation and partnerships at the forefront, WFP is actively contributing to and advancing the UN 2.0 agenda and the Quintet of Change, that focuses on innovation, data, digital fluency, foresight and behavioural science.

Here is how it is working:

#1 Innovation as a core operating principle

WFP’s Innovation Strategy 2026–2028 demonstrates what it looks like when innovation is truly embedded across a humanitarian organization. It treats innovation not as a standalone function but as a set of behaviours and capabilities shared and actively built across teams, roles and regions.

To streamline and scale its innovation efforts, WFP Innovation Accelerator started the WFP Innovation Network, composed of global field colleagues and operations who champion and advocate for innovation across the organisation. Bringing together 600 WFP Innovation Champions from 165 duty stations and close to 20 Country Offices with dedicated innovation talent, the network meets regularly and innovation is truly ingrained in all they do. The network and community are a space to share knowledge and the tools that allow WFP to build an agile and innovative culture. Learning and development initiatives, recognition awards, and an organisation-wide programme highlighting scalable solutions to the most pressing questions in the region, are only a few examples on their agenda.

The journey to make innovative ideas shared across the organisation doesn’t stop here. The WFP Innovation Accelerator has released an Innovation Database that provides quick access to a vast repository of knowledge and previously implemented programmes. Field-tested tools, templates and strategies are collected in the WFP Innovators’ Playbook — produced together with the Kenya Country Office and the WFP Eastern and Southern Africa Innovation Hub- which helps individuals innovate in specific, practical contexts.

“Innovation is key in unlocking efficiency, partnerships and sustainable funding”, says Sandra Raad, Head of WFP Innovation Network. “WFP is always looking for ways to maximise its impact. Initiatives like the WFP Innovation Network which produced the Innovation Database and other tools not only facilitate WFP’s goals, but also recognise that people closest to the challenges often hold the keys to solving them. They have a vast array of insights and locally tested-tools and processes ready to exchange with their colleagues”.

#2 Operations-first and human-centred design approach

The UN 2.0 Quintet of Change includes innovation, described as learning to scale new solutions, for example to help expand smallholder farmers’ access to tools and strategies to reduce post-harvest losses.This needs investing in knowledge sharing for WFP colleagues as well as communities we serve. At WFP, we see country offices are the engines of innovation, supported by regional innovation offices and the WFP Innovation Accelerator. They adapt global strategies to the realities and needs of local communities.

A strong example of this operations‑first approach is WFP’s work through the Post‑Harvest Loss Ventures (PHLV) initiative. The initiative implemented by WFP in five countries, helps farmers reduce losses that occur after harvest but before crops reach consumers, losses that significantly affect both quantity and quality. Many farmers in developing countries face high post‑harvest losses, and PHLV addresses this by creating business models that make technologies more accessible and affordable.

PHLV strengthens key parts of the food value chain by improving access to equipment, offering affordable training, providing digital tools, enabling small loans, and supporting farmer groups to jointly manage post‑harvest equipment. As of 2025, farmers’ households implementing PHLV techniques increased their yields an average of 23.9 percent compared to 8.9 percent for those following traditional farming techniques.

The Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office is a great example of an Innovation office that accelerates the development of sustainable, locally-led solutions. One such solution, supported by the Regional Office, is Ignite Research and Development Agri-Food Lab. This programme is focused on working with academic and research institutions to provide entrepreneurs with key skills needed to commercialise research backed innovation, currently focused on local food systems.

#3 Collaboration as a Force Multiplier for Innovation

WFP Innovation Accelerator’s SDGx team is already showing what this looks like in practice. They collaborate with other UN agencies and organisations to identify bold solution providers around the globe and help them scale their ideas. Since 2018, the SDGx team has supported over 300 ventures in 58 countries by giving them access to funding, knowledge, tools and valuable networks. In each collaboration, they build a needs-based programme to find solutions for existing global challenges, having already tackled topics from gender equality to good health and many more, to ultimately improve the lives of vulnerable communities.

For example, the WFP Innovation Accelerator has worked extensively with the UN Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD) on topics related to immediate emergency response. Together, they built the INITIATE programme to build an infectious disease treatment module for epidemic outbreaks. Over five years, more than 50 implementing partners co-designed the module to prioritize rapid deployment and quality of care. With the success of the collaboration, the offices have joined again to launch Hiper, a collaborative platform that convenes UN agencies, NGOs, private sector actors, and experts to identify critical gaps in the first 60 days of emergency response and accelerate the development of need-driven product innovations.

The UN-wide collaboration stretches even further, with colleagues sharing their expertise and experience to advance innovation as a part of the UN Innovation Network funded and co-chaired by UNICEF, UNDP and WFP. This informal, collaborative community of UN innovators dive deep into how new trends and innovation enable UN operations globally.

“There has always been so much knowledge and appetite for innovation shared across our organizations,” says Hila Cohen, one of UNIN’s Co-Chairs. “The UN Innovation Network serves as a dedicated space to share all these activities and help advance innovation across and between UN agencies.”

And so the message remains clear. Innovation is the key operating principle of UN operations and an essential tool in addressing the world’s most pressing humanitarian challenges.

The WFP Innovation Strategy reflects UN 2.0’s premise and outlines how implementing new approaches, building partnerships inside and outside the organisation, and scaling solutions delivers real impact on the ground.

Whether you are a UN agency, entrepreneur or a start-up, WFP is always interested in starting new collaborations and driving collective impact. Do not hesitate to contact us here.

Further information about the content of the article here:

• UN 2.0 | United Nations
• WFP Innovation Strategy 2026–2028
• WFP Innovation Network
• WFP Innovation Accelerator SDGx
• WFP Innovation Accelerator
• Initiate WFP Innovation
• Hiper WFP Innovation
• UN Innovation Network

The WFP Innovation Accelerator was launched by the UN World Food Programme in 2015 to source, implement and scale high-impact innovations. From its base in Munich, Germany, the WFP Innovation Accelerator has grown to become one of the world’s leading social impact startup accelerators. In 2025, the WFP Innovation Accelerator ran 14 programmes addressing a wide range of social impact and sustainability issues. Its portfolio, comprising over 85 innovations and 29 alumni projects, reached 132.5 million individuals across 75 countries and territories. In total, the WFP Innovation Accelerator has catalysed over USD 383 million in funding since 2015.

Rwanda has made financial inclusion a national priority, recognizing its role in economic transformation, poverty reduction, and the empowerment of women and young people. The country has expanded access to formal financial services and digital finance, but the challenge is no longer only about access. It is increasingly about making finance usable, relevant, and responsive to the realities of women and youth, especially those in informal work, rural areas, and savings groups.

This focus is reflected in Rwanda’s Women and Girls’ Access to Finance Strategy 2025–2030, which emphasizes that inclusive finance must go beyond account ownership and credit availability. It must also address product design, financial capability, and the structural barriers that still limit women’s and girls’ ability to use finance effectively.

For many women and young people, savings groups and Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) remain an important entry point into the financial system. Yet moving from saving to borrowing, from informal to formal finance, requires more than access. It requires products and partnerships that align with how these groups actually manage money. This is where the real work of financial inclusion begins.

SheCan is WFP’s financial inclusion and economic empowerment approach, supporting women and youth to access financial services, strengthen financial capability, and build pathways to entrepreneurship. In Rwanda, the approach is implemented under the Shora Neza project, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and led by the WFP Rwanda Country Office. Over the past year, WFP has expanded the programme significantly, reaching more than fifty thousand participants through cooperatives and youth-led savings groups.

This expansion has already translated into tangible results on the ground. Financial literacy training has equipped participants with stronger budgeting, saving, and investment skills, while internal VSLA lending has become an important entry point into finance: groups have mobilized substantial savings and are actively issuing loans to their members, increasingly for income-generating activities such as farming, small businesses, and livestock. This shift toward productive use of internal finance reflects growing financial capability, confidence, and entrepreneurial orientation among participants.

Financial literacy results have been strong. But as the programme has matured, a harder challenge has become clear: moving from successful savings into actual management of formal finance.

That challenge was at the center of a planning workshop held in March 2026 with our implementing and financial partners, including World Relief Rwanda and Equity Bank. The discussions were practical and candid. They helped us identify what was working, what was not, and sharpen our approach to building a finance pathway that works for women and youth groups.

Here are three lessons that stand out.

1. A good financial product is not enough if the design does not fit the customer

Product fit matters as much as affordability.

Under the current programme, Equity Bank’s product, supported by a development financing facility, is among the most affordable lending options available to SheCan groups. That matters. But affordability alone did not solve the problem. For many savings groups, the product structure was still difficult to use, particularly because of the 30 percent compulsory savings requirement.

The profiling work carried out with 250 Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) showed that many groups were interested in borrowing for productive activities. In fact, 171 groups representing more than 4,700 members expressed interest in accessing loans within the next six months. But the same exercise also revealed a major mismatch: all of those groups reported that they could not meet the current savings deposit requirement.

What groups said they could realistically contribute was closer to 10 percent, not 30 percent. Which, for a savings group, is the difference between a product that is theoretically available and one that is actually usable.

This is not surprising. These are groups of young women, many of whom are only now reaching this level of savings for the first time in their lives. Requiring a 30 percent deposit from their hard-earned resources understandably creates hesitation and, in some cases, resistance. But beyond risk perception, the requirement also represents a binding constraint: many groups simply do not have sufficient savings to meet this threshold while maintaining their regular savings cycles and liquidity needs. In practice, locking in such a large share of group savings not only limits their ability to qualify for the loan, but also reduces the usefulness of the financing itself, as it restricts the capital available for productive investment.

This means that if a product does not reflect how groups actually manage money, uptake will remain low. No matter how strong the headline terms.

2. Financial inclusion is also about trust, cohesion, and readiness

The workshop made clear that the barriers are also social and behavioral.

Among the groups profiled, a significant share were not ready or not interested in borrowing at this stage. The most common concern was reluctance to accept the social guarantee requirement, where members share responsibility for the loan. Other reasons included long processing times, limited interest at that moment, and limited understanding of the product.

This points to something important: not every group that saves together is ready to borrow together.

Some groups have strong internal cohesion and a clear collective economic activity. Others are still building trust. In groups where members are not confident in one another, shared liability feels risky rather than empowering. Readiness for formal finance is not only about savings or documentation. It is also about confidence, relationships and collective purpose.

In practice, the next phase of SheCan will place greater emphasis on group readiness, trust-building and strengthening collective business activity. This reflects growing evidence from economic inclusion programmes that psychosocial factors, such as confidence, social cohesion, and aspiration, can be just as critical as financial inputs in enabling individuals to take up and effectively use economic opportunities.

3. Strong coordination is critical to successful partnerships

Even when partners share the same goals, implementation can become fragmented without strong coordination.

The workshop highlighted a familiar challenge in multi-stakeholder partnerships: communication does not always flow consistently across actors, roles are not always equally understood and joint outreach and follow-up can sometimes be uneven. In some cases, training has focused more heavily on group leaders than on the full membership. In others, local actors such as field officers, branch staff and community leaders have not been involved as fully as they could be.

These gaps can make the borrowing journey more difficult for groups. When information is inconsistent or responsibilities are unclear, groups may feel unsure about where to turn for support.

The client journey is more than a banking process. For a savings group, it often includes training, documentation, registration, onboarding, follow-up and troubleshooting. When these steps are not well coordinated, groups can end up carrying the burden themselves.

The workshop also identified practical ways to strengthen coordination. Recurrent meetings have helped partners stay aligned, while WhatsApp groups have made it easier for field officers to raise issues quickly with Equity HQ. Co-creation workshops have supported the operationalization of products, and technical assistance has helped partners navigate challenges more smoothly. Standardized reporting templates have also improved consistency and clarity across the partnership.

One of the clearest takeaways was that improving uptake depends not only on refining the product but also on strengthening coordination among WFP, World Relief Rwanda, Equity Bank and local actors so that groups receive clear, consistent support throughout the process.

What we are learning overall

Taken together, these lessons show that inclusive finance partnerships work best when they are adaptive.

That means being willing to revise product terms when the evidence shows a mismatch. It means investing in trust and readiness, not just pipeline generation. And it means coordinating better across institutions so that the client journey is coherent.

In Rwanda, the SheCan team and partners are building on and adapting what already exists. The project will continue working through Equity Bank’s CDAT facility, while seeking to adjust the current structure to better reflect VSLA realities. At the same time, WFP is exploring a reserve mechanism to reduce the effective savings burden on groups, strengthening readiness support and assessing the most suitable digitization pathway.

The lesson from Rwanda is relevant far beyond one country: inclusive finance works when partnerships listen, adapt, and improve continuously.

By Iannina Canessa
Contributors: Lucy Bloxham, WFP Rwanda country office

The WFP Innovation Accelerator sources, supports and scales high-potential solutions to end hunger worldwide. We provide WFP colleagues, entrepreneurs, start-ups, companies and non-governmental organizations with access to funding, mentorship, hands-on support and WFP’s global operations.

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In rural Syria, Lamis, a farmer from Dadikh village, returned home after six years of displacement to a place she barely recognized. Her land was damaged and strewn with debris and landmines, her community shattered and her livelihood in ruins. Farming equipment lay broken, olive trees had been cut down and once-productive fields were left barren.

Despite the risks, Lamis set out to rebuild her life. She borrowed around USD 10,000 to restart her farm:

“We planted wheat, barley, cumin and lentils, but nothing yielded,” she recalls. “We borrowed money and now we are indebted.”

Lamis’s story reflects the reality facing thousands of families across Syria. Years of conflict and displacement, compounded by economic collapse and extreme weather, have eroded people’s ability to recover. Families who once relied on agriculture for their livelihoods now struggle to afford even basic food. When harvests fail, they are often pushed into debt and forced into difficult choices that undermine their long-term recovery.

Before losses escalate

To limit these impacts, the World Food Programme (WFP) is deploying Macro‑Level Disaster Risk Financing (DRF) to ensure pre‑arranged funding can be released automatically when conditions reach pre‑defined thresholds. DRF secures rapid liquidity after an event through mechanisms such as parametric insurance and catastrophe bonds. Instead of waiting for humanitarian appeals or assessments after losses occur, financing for responses becomes available early, helping families avoid asset sales, high‑interest debt and other harmful coping strategies.

In Syria, when dryness reached its most severe levels in half a century, this mechanism triggered a USD 7.9 million insurance payout. As a result, 119,880 people received timely cash assistance, including Lamis and her family. This support helps meet basic needs, reduces immediate financial pressure and enables efforts to replant crops and recover livelihoods.

Strengthening national systems

Pre‑arranged financing is designed to complement existing humanitarian responses while supporting governments and partners to plan and budget more effectively for recurring shocks. A key component of WFP’s macro-level DRF approach includes developing pre-agreed operational plans that ensure insurance payouts are mobilized quickly and predictably, reducing both financial and operational strain.

For people like Lamis still living without basic services, this kind of predictability can make a huge difference.

Inclusive Risk Financing in Iraq

In Iraq, WFP has expanded its Inclusive Risk Financing portfolio further by introducing the country’s first parametric insurance product — also marking WFP’s first insurance solution globally to cover heatwave risk. With support from the Ministry of Agriculture, WFP piloted the scheme in the Ninewa Governorate, Al Mosul, Telkif and Al Hamdaniyah districts, protecting from drought during the agricultural period from December 2024 to May 2025 and heatwave risk from June to September 2025, reaching 4,800 vulnerable people with inclusive insurance.

When severe dryness and extreme heat struck during the coverage period, the insurance scheme triggered automatic payouts of USD 61,000, released based on satellite-detected thresholds. Reaching more than 2,400 people, this support helped farming households stabilize their incomes, protect their livelihoods and avoid falling into long-term hardship. Most funds (67 percent) were invested in agricultural activities such as seeds and fertilizers, while 20 percent were used for essential household needs, highlighting that drought impacts extend beyond the farm to overall household welfare. Notably, 86 percent of farmers expressed a willingness to enrol again in the inclusive insurance programme.

Building a network of global preparedness

WFP’s Disaster Risk Financing tools are now active in 48 countries, supporting national institutions, local markets and households to manage the impacts of shocks more effectively. By shifting from reactive to early action, this approach helps protect livelihoods, reduce humanitarian needs and strengthen long‑term resilience.

For families like Lamis’s, early assistance helps them hold on to what little they have and begin to rebuild. In 2025, WFP provided food assistance and cash to Lamis and her family, including a USD 300 grant to help them meet immediate needs and replant part of their land.

“This USD 300 that you gave to my brother and I gave us great joy, and we hope it continues because we have no one to support us.”

Pre‑arranged financing cannot prevent difficult seasons, but it can help ensure people are not left to cope alone when impacted by extreme weather. It offers a practical, scalable solution that supports early action where it matters most.

The WFP Innovation Accelerator sources, supports and scales high-potential solutions to end hunger worldwide. We provide WFP colleagues, entrepreneurs, start-ups, companies and non-governmental organizations with access to funding, mentorship, hands-on support and WFP’s global operations.

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The World Food Programme convened a milestone event for the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa, celebrating the achievements of the supported pan-African ventures and programme in addressing health and food insecurity topics in Africa via innovative digital solutions.

The 18 ventures selected as finalists and awardees across the Kofi Annan Award’s two editions reached more than 1 million individuals throughout their sprint periods. This resulted in more people receiving quicker emergency services, better tracking of vaccination records, improved sustainable agriculture practices for farmers and reduced food waste, among other results.

Africa is in a critical moment of digitalization, where local innovators have the opportunity to transform the future of African livelihoods and economies. WFP is supporting these innovations and integrating innovative initiatives throughout its operations, implementing emerging technologies. As a leader in this context, WFP plays a key connective role for entrepreneurs, governments, UN agencies, public- and private-sector partners and beyond to engage in innovation for humanitarian and development actors.

“At the World Food Programme, we know innovative problem solving is needed now more than ever. After a challenging year of shifts in the humanitarian environment and an uncertain future ahead of us, we are investing in locally-led, context-specific innovations to maximize resources and generate a greater impact for those in need,” said WFP Ghana Country Director Aurore Rusiga.

The convening brought together nearly 100 local and pan-African entrepreneurs and leaders focused on impact innovation to exchange ideas and strengthen the Ghanaian innovation ecosystem. First, ventures shared common challenges and work toward solutions in AI applications, entrepreneurial resilience and funding and partnerships. Then, venture panelists, programme partners from the Austrian Government and the Kofi Annan Foundation and WFP representatives shared their learnings and experiences with the broader ecosystem in Ghana.

“We are proud of what the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa has accomplished over the last years,” said Jose Alcocer, Head of SDGx at the WFP Innovation Accelerator, which runs the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa. “Seeing the integrity and dedication of the ventures combined with their expertise in action gives me great hope for the future. At the WFP Innovation Accelerator, every step we can take to support them and ventures like them on their path to scale are steps worth taking, because it means one step toward food security and improved livelihoods for all.”

The Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa is powered by the Austrian Federal Chancellery and Kofi Annan Foundation and operationally supported by the WFP Innovation Accelerator and Austrian Development Agency.

After two successful iterations, the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa is seeking additional partners to continue the impactful programme, empower more African innovators and accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.