World Food Programme

The WFP Innovation Accelerator is the innovation unit of the World Food Programme, the United Nations agency dealing with hunger and food security. Established in 2015 and operating globally, it helps turn promising ideas into practical solutions for humanitarian challenges by supporting WFP employees, entrepreneurs, start-ups, companies and NGOs to source, implement and scale high-impact innovations rooted in local needs.

The Accelerator works through a sequence of programmes. Innovation Challenges identify promising ideas; Bootcamps develop and refine solutions; Sprint Programmes provide funding and technical support to develop and implement them; and Scaling Support helps proven innovations reach more people, while exploring emerging technologies and financing approaches. The unit's technical work spans innovation sourcing and development, emerging technologies, scaling of solutions, financing approaches and humanitarian technology. Fourteen programmes were run in 2025.

The Accelerator's work sits across humanitarian aid, food security and hunger, emergency response, climate change, primary healthcare and gender equality. Its stated orientation is innovation-driven and impact-focused, with an emphasis on cross-sector collaboration and on solutions that contribute to responding faster, reducing operational costs and directing more resources towards tackling hunger.