The mission of the World Food Programme is to end global hunger. WFP provides food assistance in emergencies and works with governments, UN agencies, non-governmental organizations, companies and individuals to tackle the underlying causes of hunger, build self-reliance and improve food security.

1. World Food Programme
Zero Hunger: the Heart of the 2030 Agenda
World Food Programme
The mission of the World Food Programme is to
end global hunger. WFP provides food assistance in
emergencies and works with governments, UN agencies,
non-governmental organizations, companies and
individuals to tackle the underlying causes of hunger,
build self-reliance and improve food security.
Funded entirely by voluntary contributions, WFP supports
some 80 million people in 80 countries – the poorest,
weakest and most undernourished – two-thirds of them
children.
Two-thirds of its work is in conflict-affected countries,
where people are three times more likely to be
undernourished than those living in countries at peace.
On an average day, WFP has 20 ships, 70 aircraft and
5,000 trucks delivering food and other assistance where
they are most needed. To do so, it works with over
1,000 NGO partners.
Delivery and distribution mechanisms are carefully tailored
to the needs of those WFP serves. For example, use of
cash-based transfers – an effective platform that enable
people to choose their own food – has tripled in the last
four years, and now accounts for more than one-fifth of
WFP’s interventions globally.
Zero Hunger is at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development – 17 universal, integrated
and inter-dependent goals – which recognises that the
achievement of any one goal is dependent on progress in
all of them.
Crucially, the Sustainable Development Goals, to be
attained in 15 years, commit to leaving no one behind,
and to reaching those furthest behind first. They explicitly
call for reducing inequalities between men and women,
between urban and rural areas, and socio-economic and
other groups.
Indeed, poverty reduction through inclusive economic
growth is key to eliminating hunger and malnutrition.
Governments must therefore allocate additional resources
to investments that improve the food and nutrition security
of the poorest.
Agenda 2030 recognises the potential for conflict, natural
disasters, displacement, pandemics and environmental
degradation to reverse developmental progress. Eighty
percent of food-insecure people live in places that are
prone to degradation and disaster.
Sustainable Development Goal 2 aims to “end hunger,
achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote
sustainable agriculture”. It acknowledges that eradicating
hunger means ensuring access to nutritious food for the
most vulnerable, increasing agricultural production through
sustainable and resilient food systems and tackling the
multi-dimensional causes of malnutrition.
Over the last 15 years, 200 million people around the
world were lifted out of hunger. With 800 million people
still chronically undernourished, that achievement will
have to be quadrupled if Zero Hunger – SDG 2 – is to be
reached in the next 15 years.
That, in turn, will require massive additional investments
in agriculture and social protection systems meaningfully
empowering women and young people, significantly
more active involvement by the resourceful and
innovative private sector, and much greater reliance on
the knowledge and expertise of local communities and
responders.
January 2016
ZEROHUNGER