It was a year of unprecedented climate-related disasters with drought, floods and heatwaves, often intersecting with conflict, devastating communities across the world in a year of unprecedented hunger. Looking back at 2022, perhaps the world can take inspiration from the Cholitas Escaladoras Maya, a group of women mountaineers, who are flying the WFP flag high in the mountain peaks of Bolivia. They are sharing messages of Indigenous women’s empowerment, promoting the production and consumption of ancestral foods – and providing first-hand accounts of how climate-change is changing the landscape in the altiplano, or highlands, whose mountains are sacred to them. 

As it turns 10, WFP's popular philanthropic trivia game is becoming more than just a fun platform for testing your knowledge and earning rice grains. Freerice is now a Youth Hub aimed at building a community of Hunger Heroes.

Soil degradation threatens crop productivity, plant health, the quality of food and, ultimately, people; a hefty consideration as we mark World Soil Day on Monday (5 December). Every year, soil erosion is responsible for the loss of 24 billion tons of fertile land. Land use plays a key role in mitigating climate change. Healthy forests and soils help to regulate the planet’s temperature and store carbon. Every year, the WFP rehabilitates almost 200,000 hectares of land around the world – more than twice the size of New York City.

In Syria after years of conflict, 12 million people are food insecure. WFP Goodwill Ambassador George Stroumboulopoulos visited the country in September to see what life is like for people wrestling with unrelenting crises for all this time. In Aleppo he met Ghufran, a former Taekwondo champ, who said her martial arts training helps combat hard times. Ghufran took on cleaning, cooking, and tutoring jobs, to make a living for herself and her three children. But last year as economic downturn led to skyrocketing prices across the country, Ghufran’s income fell short of making ends meet. She turned to WFP, which provides monthly food assistance for families like Ghufran’s. Find out more about Ghufran’s story.

While Africa contributes just 4 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, the continent is being hammered by the fallout from climate change.  Already it is seeing extreme weather events, mass migration and rising poverty and hunger. Tanzanian environmental and climate expert Jacqueline Tesha is working to help rural women in her homeland access vital weather and climate information. She is participating in a WFP programme working to develop climate tools to better anticipate and mitigate disasters. “We must halt the crisis and help people adapt,” Tesha says.  Finding the right channels to communicate key climate information will be essential to that goal. Find out more about the programme.

Due to the devasting fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, Sahar and her husband were among the young Gazans left with an income barely allowing them to get by. They could scarcely keep their family business afloat. Today, their products are quickly snapped up by local residents across the Gaza Strip.  Sahar’s fortunes changed dramatically last year thanks to a joint UN initiative to mitigate the pandemic’s impact on women entrepreneurs. Targeting small and medium businesses, the programme rolled out by the WFP and four sister UN agencies, developed the skills and capacities of 40 women-led agribusinesses in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Find out more about the programme here.

Heatwaves, droughts, floods, and storms are increasing in intensity and frequency and impacting people’s ability to feed their families. As world leaders prepare to meet in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), WFP is calling on world leaders to act swiftly to help millions of people facing rising hunger and famine. The UN agency is urging global leaders to invest in systems that predict climate hazards and provide physical and financial protection to the most vulnerable. It is calling on world leaders to invest in climate action in communities in fragile contexts and to transform food systems. Find out more about the coordinated action needed to tackle the climate crisis.

Indigenous women like this Ecuadoran farmer have precious ancestral knowledge about growing and using traditional foods. They are the backbone of their families and communities — and make up roughly one-eighth of Latin America’s rural population. Even more crucially, perhaps, they keep and transmit precious ancestral knowledge on growing and using traditional foods, whose importance is only now being recognized. Yet the vital role the region’s Indigenous rural women play in their communities and society is very seldom acknowledged, much less celebrated. WFP helps to support Indigenous rural women to overcome historic barriers, fully harness the ancestral wisdom they carry, and contribute on an equal footing to the life of their communities. 

UNHCR and WFP set up an independent service - UN FLEET - to help their sister UN organizations lease the vehicles they need for operations around the world.

Weeks of heavy rains and floods have affected 5 million people in 19 countries across West and Central Africa, killing hundreds, displacing tens of thousands and destroying many hectares of croplands. WFP is working with governments to support flood-hit communities. The UN agency’s emergency assistance provided through food and cash distributions, keeps vulnerable families afloat amid a broader economic downturn, as the war in Ukraine feeds skyrocketing food, fertilizer and fuel prices. WFP is also rolling out programmes that allow governments to better prepare and recover from future floods and other weather disasters, which will likely become more devastating and frequent with climate change.

Haiti is on the shortlist of acutely hungry countries. WFP needs more support from UN member states to further facilitate humanitarian access and protect humanitarians and assets.

More than a year after foreign forces withdrew and the Taliban took power across the whole of Afghanistan, the country’s economy has withered and development aid and assets are still largely frozen. Millions of families have almost no way to cope with another harsh winter. Indeed, WFP is one of the last remaining barriers between Afghanistan and famine.  But the strength of our hunger barrier will depend on donor generosity. WFP urgently needs US$1.1 billion to continue delivering food and nutritional assistance for the next six months to 18 million acutely food-insecure Afghans.

The number of people facing acute food insecurity worldwide is expected to continue to rise precipitously, as the food crisis tightens its grip on 19 ‘hunger hotspots’, according to FAO/WFP report.

WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency, assisting 115.5 million people in over 120 countries and territories. Each day it has up to 5,600 trucks, 30 ships and 100 planes on the move, delivering food and other assistance in some of the most remote and challenging parts of the world. It is the frontline UN agency responding to emergencies caused by conflict, climate shocks, pandemics, and other disasters, tackling ongoing emergencies in over 20 countries or regions. WFP also provides school meals to 15.5 million children, improving both their nutrition and their access to a potentially life-changing education. Read the article to find out more about the UN agency.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is rapidly expanding its food assistance support in Pakistan as the Government takes stock of floods which have killed nearly 1,000 people and displaced 33 million.

Through its National Disaster Management Authority, the Government – which has declared a national emergency – is leading the response in coordinating assessments and directing humanitarian relief to flood-affected people. For their part, UN agencies such as WFP are providing “augmented information, together with the Government, to ensure … we have greater verification of exactly who should avail themselves of that cash”. Read the full article.