WFP Brings Proven AI Solutions to India Summit; Seeks Partners to Accelerate Efforts in Support of Fight Against Hunger

 “When families are facing hunger, speed and precision are everything. AI helps us reach them faster, target assistance more accurately, and stretch limited resources further — so vulnerable people get the right support, at the right time,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain.

Speaking in Delhi, WFP Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau will showcase the organization’s track record of deploying AI in the field and lay out what is needed — in partnerships, investment, and technical expertise — to expand these capabilities to help reach millions more people struggling with hunger.

AI-powered tools are today delivering measurable impact across five areas of WFP operations:

• Predicting crises before they hit: Machine learning enables 60-day advance warning of food security risks across more than 90 countries, helping teams to anticipate where hunger will surge and act sooner.
• Assessing damage faster: Open-source, AI-driven satellite analysis has cut building damage assessment times from three weeks to 48 hours. WFP shares this tool with government partners to boost their national disaster response capacity.
• Delivering assistance quicker: With secure AI tools, vast amounts of data are now processed in half the time, allowing WFP to move faster to its core work: delivering food and cash to people in need.
• Optimizing supply chains: SCOUT, an AI-driven supply chain planning tool, helps teams to better determine where to buy, store, and deliver vital humanitarian food supplies. Since 2024, it has enabled WFP to save more than USD6 million — and is projected to save USD25 million annually when deployed at scale.
• Protecting the integrity of assistance: At a time of shrinking humanitarian budgets, AI automation is fixing duplication errors in databases, freeing up resources so that WFP can reach the maximum number of vulnerable people with essential assistance.

These efforts are guided by WFP’s Global Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the first of its kind for a UN agency, which sets clear standards and governance for field-ready applications of AI with safeguards appropriate to humanitarian contexts.

WFP is calling on public-private partners to help the organization take action across three areas:

• Co-building responsible AI for the humanitarian space: WFP is ready to co-create and co-invest with industry and research partners whose tools and expertise can be combined with the organization’s operational reach.
• Modernizing humanitarian and development systems: WFP is ready to share enterprise platforms and scalable approaches so that proven tools can be reused and strengthened across the humanitarian community, not rebuilt from scratch.
• Strengthening national systems: WFP has the expertise to help governments integrate AI into domestic food security, social protection, and climate preparedness systems.

“WFP’s frontline presence gives us unique data from some of the hardest-to-reach places on earth. AI helps us turn that data into faster, smarter action,” said Skau. “To take this further, we need the private sector and our government partners to scale up with us.”

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The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

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