The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian agency, saving lives in emergencies and providing food assistance to help people rebuild their lives after conflict, catastrophes, and the effects of climate change. Hunger should be a thing of the past in a world of plenty, where enough food is produced to nourish everyone on the earth. Conflict, climate change, disasters, inequality, and – most recently – the COVID-19 pandemic mean that one out of every nine people in the world still goes to bed hungry, and millions face hunger. In 2020, the World Food Programme (WFP) supported 115.5 million individuals in 84 countries, the highest amount since 2012. In this article, the candidates will understand the overall conception of the World Food Programme for the preparation for the UPSC Exam.

What is World Food Programme?

• The World Food Program (WFP) is the leading association showcasing compassion towards saving daily routines and evolving lives, delivering food help with crises and working with networks to further develop sustenance and build resilience.
• It is the world's largest humanitarian organisation dedicated to eradicating hunger worldwide.
• Every year, it provides food aid to more than 80 million individuals in 75 countries.
• It was established in 1961 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
• It is likewise an individual from the United Nations Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG), an alliance of UN offices and associations focused on employing resources for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• The WFP assists 88 countries and has assisted 97 million people (in 2019) which is the largest number since 2012.
• The organisation employs 11,500 workers, the majority of whom operate in distant places, directly helping the hungry poor.
• The World Food Programme is entirely self-funded.
• The World Food Programme's major purpose is to accomplish Zero Hunger-pledges to eradicate hunger, ensure food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.
• The World Food Programme (WFP) is a driving force in attempts to prevent hunger from being used as a weapon of war and conflict.
• Throughout the epidemic, WFP has supplied medical cargoes to over 120 countries to assist governments and health partners in combating COVID-19.
• It has also provided passenger services to transport humanitarian and medical personnel when commercial flights are not available.
• The WFP has been granted the Nobel Prize for Peace 2020 for its endeavours to battle hunger, bettering circumstances for harmony in struggle impacted regions and forestalling the utilization of appetite as a weapon of war and struggle
• Headquarters: Rome, Italy.
• Governance: The Executive Board, which consists of 36 member nations, is in charge of the organisation. It is led by an Executive Director, who is jointly appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The Executive Director is appointed for five years at a time.

WFP Focus Areas

1. Climate action
2. Disaster risk reduction
3. Gender equality
4. Nutrition
5. Smallholder market support
6. Social protection and safety nets
7. Sustainable livelihoods and ecosystem

Objectives of World Food Programme

• WFP centres around crisis help as well as recovery and advancement help.
• 66% of its work is in struggle impacted nations, where individuals are multiple times bound to be undernourished than somewhere else.
• It works intimately with the other two Rome-based UN offices:
  • The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), assists nations with drawing up approaches and changing regulations to help economical farming.
  • The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), accounts for projects in poor country regions.
• To end hunger by safeguarding admittance to food.
• Further developing sustenance and accomplishing food security.
• Supporting the SDG execution and cooperating for its expected outcomes.

Funding

• The WFP has no independent source of assets, it is financed completely by philanthropists. Its central givers are states, yet the association likewise gets gifts from the private area and people.
• States: Legislatures are the chief wellspring of financing for WFP; the association gets no levy or parcels of the UN evaluated commitments. By and large, north of 60 state-run administrations guarantee the compassionate and improvement undertakings of WFP
• Corporates: Through corporate-giving projects, individual organizations make imperative commitments to battling hunger.
  • Donations from private and not-for-benefits substances have included cutting edge help to a few crisis activities; skills to improve WFP's coordinated operations and raising support limits; and basic money for school taking care of.
• Individuals: Individual commitments can have an effect on the existence of the hungry. An individual gift can give:
  • Crisis food apportions during an emergency
  • Extraordinary nourishment for hungry kids in schools.
  • food incentives to urge poor families to send their young ladies to school.
  • Food as an instalment for individuals to modify schools, streets and another framework right after clashes and catastrophic events.

Share the Meal initiative

• ShareTheMeal is a drive of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).
• Donations from the ShareTheMeal application support different WFP tasks going from flexibility building and school taking care of projects to giving food help with crises.
• The application was launched in 2015 and from that point forward, it has given help to probably the biggest food emergencies on the planet including Yemen, Syria and Nigeria.

WFP and India

WFP has been working in India beginning around 1963, with work changing from food conveyance to specialized help since the nation accomplished independence in grain creation.

The regions where WFP mostly aids India are:

• Changing the designated public distribution system: WFP is attempting to work on the effectiveness, responsibility and straightforwardness of India's own financed food circulation framework, which brings supplies of wheat, rice, sugar and lamp fuel oil to around 800 million needy individuals the nation over.
• Fortification of food distributed by Government: To support the dietary benefit of the Government's Midday Meal school taking care of the program, WFP is spearheading the multi-micronutrient stronghold of school dinners.

1. The pilot project saw rice braced with iron, which was circulated in a solitary area, bringing about a 20 per cent drop in sickliness.
2. It has likewise helped tackle unhealthiness by bracing food given to infants and little youngsters in Kerala State.

• Planning and observing of food instability:
• WFP has utilized Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping programming projects to recognize India's most food unreliable regions, which permits strategy and help work to be designated fittingly.
• WFP is additionally supporting the public authority's Poverty and Human Development Monitoring Agency in laying out a State-level Food Security Analysis Unit, running after the objective of accomplishing Zero Hunger.

WFP’S Role in India

• India, the world's second-most populous country, has had consistent economic growth and has just reached grain self-sufficiency. Despite this, poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition remain widespread.
• Around 21.25% of the population lives on less than $1.90 per day, resulting in severe levels of inequality and social isolation.
• India is home to a quarter of the world's undernourished people, making it a crucial priority for global hunger relief efforts.
• Although per capita income has more than tripled in the last two decades, the minimum dietary consumption has decreased.
• During this period of rapid economic growth, the divide between rich and poor widened.
• It focuses on Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) changes and provides policy recommendations, advocacy, and technical help to improve food access.
• WFP has been working closely with the Indian government to overhaul the Public Distribution System, as well as developing new solutions such as the latest 'Annapurti', automatic grain dispensers (rice ATMs) that are targeted at reducing distribution system malpractices.
• COVID-19 is expected to increase the number of people facing acute food insecurity, according to the UN World Food Programme.
• The government, in conjunction with the World Food Program, initially announced Rs 1.74 lakh crore in funds and measures to provide additional rations through its targeted public distribution system (TPDS) for the first three months, doubling the quantity and free distribution of 5 kg of rice or wheat and 1 kg of pulses, as well as additional cash provisions, have been extremely beneficial to poor and vulnerable families.

Conclusion

As of 2020, the World Food Programme has served 115.5 million people in 80-plus countries, the largest since 2012. With a view to eradicating hunger, malnutrition in the population, increasing the number of school-going kids and providing hygienic and healthy food in the hunger strike areas takes a lot of humanitarian traits covering the whole of the globe. Because of its on-the-ground presence, WFP is well-positioned to assist vulnerable people around the world with nutrition-based activities, school meal-type activities, and cash so that people can buy their food and generate economic growth in their communities, as well as access food when there are shortages. As a result, the World Food Programme's role in ensuring food security for the world's most vulnerable people becomes increasingly crucial, particularly in the post-Covid age. In addition, climate change-related displacements will increase the number of climate refugees in the next decades, posing a bigger threat to food security.