WFP at a Glance

This guide is updated on an ongoing basis. For referencing purposes, please refer to the WFP at a Glance publication (issued three times per year).

About WFP

The World Food Programme (WFP) is among the first on the scene in an emergency, providing food and other assistance to people affected by conflict, drought, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and crop failures, as well as pandemics such as COVID-19. At the same time, we keep a sharp focus on sustainable development, providing governments with the support and skills to manage food security in the long term. We reached 152 million people with food, cash and commodity vouchers in 2023, with a presence in over 120 countries and territories. WFP aims to reach the same number in 2024.

Quick facts

• WFP is funded entirely by voluntary donations, with US$8.3 billion raised in 2023.
• More than 50 percent of the people WFP serves are women and girls.
• WFP has around 23,000 staff, of whom 87 percent are field based.

A global hunger crisis

This is another extraordinary year of extreme jeopardy for millions of people around the world struggling to feed their families. A stream of global crises driven by conflict, the climate crisis and economic shocks - overlapping and escalating in countries and regions - has generated an unremitting demand for urgent humanitarian and development assistance. 

A total 309 million people face acute hunger in 71 countries in 2024 – almost 200 million above pre-COVID-19 levels. Of these, more than 37.2 million people face emergency levels of hunger or worse.

There are 1.3 million people in the grips of catastrophic hunger – primarily in Gaza and Sudan but also in pockets of South Sudan and Mali. They are teetering on the brink of famine. Famine has been declared in Zamzam camp in northern Sudan, which shelters hundreds of thousands of displaced people.   

Funding shortfall and ration cuts

While acute hunger remains at record levels, increasing funding shortfalls have forced WFP - and other humanitarian organizations - to scale back assistance and refocus efforts on the most severe needs. The global economic downturn and long-term fiscal tightening mean that many government donors and other partners are reducing levels of support.  

Last year saw cuts in food, cash and nutrition assistance in more than half of WFP’s operations worldwide. Cutting assistance forces vulnerable people to skip meals and eat less nutritious food, while damaging efforts to address the root causes of hunger and malnutrition. 

At the same time, conflicts, shifting frontlines, political inaction and bureaucratic impediments continue to stand in the way of us reaching food-insecure communities and saving lives. 

Main areas of work

Emergency response* and preparedness

WFP is the frontline agency responding to emergencies caused by conflict, climate shocks, pandemics and other disasters. We also coordinate responses to large-scale emergencies on behalf of the wider humanitarian community, as lead agency of the Logistics Cluster and the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster. Our focus is also on emergency preparedness, working with partners to provide early warning and helping communities lessen the impact of looming disasters.

• Each day WFP has up to 5,000 trucks, 132 aircraft and 20 ships on the move, delivering food and other assistance.

(*See also ‘Current emergencies' section below)

Climate action

Climate shocks such as droughts and floods can wipe out crops, disrupt markets and destroy roads and bridges. WFP works with governments and humanitarian partners on the frontlines, responding to an increasing number of disasters. At the same time, we take pre-emptive action to reduce the number of people needing humanitarian assistance. This includes restoring degraded ecosystems that serve as natural shields against climate disasters

WFP deploys Forecast-based Financing to provide cash to vulnerable families, allowing them to buy food, reinforce their homes and take other steps to build resilience ahead of climate disasters. 

• WFP supported nearly 18 million people through activities to protect against climate shocks in 2023

Ending malnutrition

Sustainable development is only possible in communities where malnutrition is eradicated and future generations can flourish. WFP has broadened its focus in recent years from emergency interventions to addressing all forms of malnutrition including vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and overweight and obesity.

WFP addresses malnutrition from the earliest stages, through programmes targeting the first 1,000 days from conception to a child's second birthday. We provide access to healthy diets, targeting young children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and people living with HIV.

• WFP supported 27 million women and children with measures to prevent and treat malnutrition in the first 1,000 days of life, during 2023

School-meal programmes 

WFP is the largest humanitarian organization implementing school-meal programmes. School meals improve children's nutrition and health, while also increasing access to a potentially life-changing education. Home-grown school feeding sources food from millions of smallholder farmers, increasing their incomes and boosting local economies.

WFP serves as secretariat of the School Meals Coalition, comprising over 90 governments and more than 100 organizations working to ensure that every child has the opportunity to receive a healthy, nutritious meal by 2030. 

• WFP provided nutritious school meals, take-home rations or snacks to 21.4 million schoolchildren in 61 countries in 2023. 

Supporting smallholder farmers

Smallholder farmers produce most of the world's food and are critical in achieving a zero-hunger world. WFP's support to farmers spans a range of activities to help build sustainable food systems, from business-skills training to post-harvest management, to opening up access to finance and roads to markets. 

• WFP bought 90,000 metric tons of food from smallholder farmers in 24 countries for our operations in 2023, worth US$56 million, boosting their livelihoods and injecting cash into local economies.

Building resilience

WFP's early-warning and preparedness systems – including supply chain management, logistics and emergency communications – allow governments to prevent crises or respond quickly when they happen. We are helping to develop national capacities to manage disaster risk through finance and risk-transfer tools, such as weather risk insurance. Our expertise includes vulnerability analysis and mapping, as well as support to governments' social protection systems such as cash transfers – developing national payment systems for example.

WFP's Food Assistance for Assets programme forms a core element of WFP's resilience work, improving long-term food security while helping create conditions for peace. People receive food or cash to meet immediate food needs, which frees up their time for working on community assets or livelihood resources that can increase resilience to climate change and improve access to markets.

• WFP-supported asset creation and livelihood activities in 2023 included rehabilitating 377,000 hectares of land, planting 4,200 hectares of forest, and repairing or building more than 7,200 km of roads and trails
    

  

Cash assistance

WFP is the largest cash provider in the humanitarian community. Cash allows for increased choices and diet diversity for people, while boosting local smallholder production, retail and the financial sector through increased spending and trade. It is also an effective means of giving more economic power to food-insecure women.

• WFP transferred US$2.9 billion in cash-based transfers and commodity vouchers (which are redeemed for specific items) in 76 countries in 2023, reaching 51.6 million people.

Capacity building

WFP transfers its skills and knowledge to a range of public, private and civil society groups who are pivotal to sustaining national policies and programmes. We are building governments' and other partners' capacities to manage disaster risk and improve food security, while also investing in the aforementioned early-warning and preparedness systems for climate and other threats.

• In 2023, WFP supported 58 countries in becoming better prepared for, and more able to respond to, emergencies, through development and training related to preparedness and response systems.

Nobel Peace Prize

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to WFP in October 2020 reflects our strong advocacy for the critical role of peace in ending hunger, and for the use of food as a tool for peace. Conflict and insecurity are key drivers of hunger. Many of the people WFP supports are fleeing conflict, and have been forced to abandon their land, homes and jobs. This award increased WFP's opportunity to provide a stronger voice to hungry people in the world, and to mobilize support for the food assistance that they need.

Digital innovation

New technologies and innovation help drive WFP’s work to achieve zero hunger by 2030. WFP’s Munich-based Innovation Accelerator sources new ideas, pilots projects and scales high-impact innovations, by connecting them with WFP’s global network and field operations in over 120 countries and territories. 

The Accelerator reached 60.7 million individuals across 70 countries and territories in 2023, working with a network of WFP country offices and regional bureaux, innovation hubs and units and partners. 

Among innovations supported by the WFP Innovation Accelerator:

• Optimus is an online optimization tool that helps identify the most cost-effective way to reach the people WFP serves. It has been used in 44 country offices, resulting in more than US$50 million in savings since 2015.
• Earthshot Prize-winning Boomitra uses remote sensing and Artificial Intelligence to monitor soil quality including carbon levels, enabling farmers to adopt climate smart agriculture practices – such as reduced tillage and mulching with crop residue.
• Solar 4 Resilience was started by WFP, the state of Odisha in India and the private company Science for Society Technologies (another Earthshot Prize winner). It provides entrepreneurs with solar-powered tools to convert damaged produce (vegetables, fruits, spices and marine products) into ingredients.

Current emergencies

Highest level

State of Palestine: A total 96 percent of the population of Gaza is facing acute food insecurity, with 2.15 million people at Crisis levels of hunger or worse. Almost half a million of these are in Catastrophic conditions. 

Sudan: Famine has been declared in a camp sheltering hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Sudan’s North Darfur Region, and a total of 25.6 million people are facing acute hunger.

Other

Afghanistan: A severe funding crisis puts at risk gains made through record levels of food assistance provided in the wake of the Taliban’s takeover in 2021 and the economic crisis that followed. `

The Democratic Republic of the Congo: The country is facing one of the world's largest hunger crises, with an estimated 23.4 million people experiencing Crisis and Emergency levels of food insecurity.

Ethiopia: Since operations resumed in mid-November, WFP convoys have carried thousands of tons of food into the conflict-affected Tigray region, allowing us to reach those most in need of our assistance. 

Haiti: The country has reached a grim milestone, with half the population now facing acute hunger. This includes over 2 million people facing “emergency” levels of hunger.

Lebanon: Escalating violence in Lebanon has led to mass displacements, requiring WFP to scale up its emergency food assistance to reach up to 1 million people. 

Myanmar: Food insecurity in Myanmar has risen sharply amid the worst humanitarian crisis in its recent history, affecting 13.3 million or one in four people.

North Eastern Nigeria: Conflict and insecurity, rising inflation and the impact of the climate crisis continue to drive hunger in Nigeria. A total of 32 million people across the country were projected to face acute hunger in the June-August 2024 lean season. 

Sahel: The conflict in the Sahel is upending lives and livelihoods and forcing more people to flee in desperation. The impact of the climate crisis, global economic headwinds that increase food and fuel prices, declining agricultural production, and intercommunal tensions are among other major drivers of hunger.

Somalia: A total of 3.4 million people are facing acute food insecure in Somalia. Above-average rainfall and localized floods, during the Gu rainy season (April–June), affected 268,000 people and damaged livelihood assets. 

Southern Africa drought: Southern Africa is grappling with an unprecedented drought triggered by El Niño, a recurring climate phenomenon known for its capacity to exacerbate either dry or stormy weather patterns. 

South Sudan: South Sudan is simultaneously drowning and drying as the climate crisis tightens its grip. An unprecedented flooding crisis has swallowed large swathes of the country while other parts are grappling with devastating drought

Syria: Syria remains among the ten countries with the highest number of hungry people globally, but a funding crunch has forced WFP to end its food assistance programme. 

Ukraine: The war in Ukraine continues to displace people, damage infrastructure, disrupt supply chains and hold back the country’s economy. One in five families is estimated to be food insecure.

Yemen: Nearly a decade of conflict in Yemen has created one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises, with the threat of famine never far away. 

UNHAS

WFP Aviation manages the only UN-mandated air transport service, the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS). The service connects the entire humanitarian and development community to people in need, reaching the most remote and dangerous locations on earth. It also ensures an uninterrupted delivery of supplies when other transport is disrupted by insecurity or damaged roads or other infrastructure, and where almost no other commercial airline is flying.

• UNHAS transported more than 388,000 humanitarian staff and 4,800 metric tons of cargo in 2023, ensuring that 647 organizations could reach over 437 remote and hard-to-reach destinations.

Further information: 12 things you may not know about the World Food Programme / History / Who we are / Our work / Where we work / Governance and leadership