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Spotlight on World Food Programme

Assisting 80 million people in around 80 countries each year, the World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organisation fighting hunger worldwide, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience.

Every day, WFP and its partners work to bring us closer to a zero hunger world. With humanitarian food assistance, WFP provides nutritious food to those in urgent need. Additional complementary programmes address the root causes of hunger, building the resilience of communities.

WFP’s efforts focus on emergency assistance, relief and rehabilitation, development aid and special operations. Two-thirds of their work is in conflict-affected countries where people are three times more likely to be undernourished than those living in countries without conflict.

WFP is the largest humanitarian organisation implementing school feeding programmes worldwide and has been doing so for over 50 years. Each year, WFP provides school meals to between 20 and 25 million children across 63 countries, often in the hardest-to-reach areas.

WFP also provides services to the entire humanitarian community, including passenger air transportation through the UN Humanitarian Air Service, which flies to more than 250 locations worldwide.

The Vision: 5 steps to zero hunger

  1. Put the furthest behind
  2. Pave the road from farm to market
  3. Reduce food waste
  4. Encourage a sustainable variety of crops
  5. Make nutrition a priority, starting with a child’s first 100 days

Interesting stats:

  • 9 billion people around the world are estimated to be overweight, while 815 million still go to bed hungry every night.
  • War and hunger go hand in hand. Nearly 7 years into the conflict, basic food prices in Syria have increased by 800% compared to pre-crisis period.
  • Within just one generation, the Republic of Korea transformed from one of the poorest countries in the world to one of WFP’s top donors. With WFP’s support, Korea is now a living example of how #ZeroHunger can become reality.
  • On any given day, WFP has 5,000 trucks, 20 ships and 92 planes on the move, delivering food and other assistance to those in most need.

 

Read more:

WFP strategic plan

Hunger Map

The 17 global goals