The leaders of the World Bank and the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) have joined forces to knock down the practical and ideological barriers between “humanitarian” and “development” assistance in order to better tackle the complex challenges the world faces. Both share a vision of a world without extreme poverty and hunger, their approaches to tackling those problems in the past have been very different.
According to the World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, “By 2030, we estimate that half of the world’s extreme poor will live in fragile and conflict-affected countries. If we are serious about ending poverty, we have to work closely with humanitarian organizations such as the World Food Programme. The framework we’re signing today builds on our respective strengths and demonstrates our commitment to work together to make sure no one is left behind.”
WFP Executive Director David Beasley said, “Hunger is dramatically on the rise and millions of people are suffering. The world can’t afford to sit back and watch us work separately on these problems. Today signals an end to the siloed way of doing things and the beginning of WFP and the World Bank working closely together – regardless of who gets the credit – to fight hunger and poverty and increase stability and sustainability.”
The World Bank and the U.N. World Food Programme signed a groundbreaking new framework to combine their organizations’ efforts in new ways, offering concrete guidance and support to help World Bank and WFP teams work together in countries across the globe.
The strategic partnership framework – the first of its kind between the two institutions — identifies nine priority areas where the combination of the World Bank’s analytic and financial expertise and WFP’s unparalleled operational footprint can have the most powerful effect together in reducing hunger and extreme poverty.
They include, but are not limited to: increased cooperation in fragile, conflict- or violence-affected contexts; enhancing collaboration on social protection; supporting digital identity management systems; support for school meals, health and nutrition programs; and joining forces to prevent childhood stunting in contexts where humanitarian and development agendas intersect.