United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization saving lives and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. Increasingly, WFP meets people’s food needs through cash-based transfers that allow the people we serve to choose and shop for their own food locally.
WFP believes in an inclusive financial ecosystem that extends the reach of affordable digital financial products and services to all. Women and men should have the required financial and digital capabilities to make informed financial decisions, and the private sector should have the right market incentives to expand the reach of its networks and provide innovative solutions whilst upholding customer rights and protection standards. Similarly, national regulatory environments and financial inclusion policies and strategies should be inclusive, fostering and not limiting digital financial inclusion for all. Given the gender gap in financial access, WFP focuses on identifying and overcoming access and usage barriers of digital financial products and services for marginalised women particularly in the most difficult contexts.
Money gives women and men greater freedom, choice, a sense of and dignity. Both humanitarian cash transfers provided directly by WFP as well as Government-to-Person (G2P) payment schemes increasingly supported by WFP, can provide first-time access to—and usage of formal financial services to unbanked and underserved populations and their businesses. When deliberately designed to do so, cash transfers can thereby contribute to longer-term objectives such as Digital Financial Inclusion (DFI) and Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE).
Since 2020, WFP has been working to accompany people, women in particular, on their journey toward greater digital financial inclusion and economic empowerment. This has become a corporate priority reflected in our normative framework: WFP now envisions to support 10 million women through their own financial accounts. On these accounts women will be able to receive money from WFP, other humanitarian partner organisations, or governments supported by WFP, as well as money from their families and of course their income.
2023 marked a significant milestone in terms of the normative framework supporting our pathway to scale: after multiple consultations with board members and external stakeholders, the WFP Executive Board approved WFP’s new Cash Policy in June 2023, with digital financial Inclusion and women’s economic empowerment as 2 of the 5 outcomes of the policy:
• Outcome 3: People are more financially resilient as a result of digital financial inclusion. WFP will accelerate digital financial inclusion for people affected by crisis.
• Outcome 5 (cross-cutting): Food-insecure women have greater economic power. WFP will send money to women and design programmes around their needs.
Back by strong foundational normative pieces, such as WFP’s 2022-2025 Corporate Strategic Plan, we now have a compass to operationalise and mainstream digital financial inclusion across all of WFP’s cash transfer operations and will work towards our goal of providing transfers to 10 million women on their accounts by 2030.
The stark reality of our times - a 60 % funding shortfall juxtaposed with the needs of 333 million people facing acute hunger - brings into sharp focus the necessity of our mission. More than ever, our efforts are directed towards ensuring that limited funds not only address immediate needs but also build long-term self-reliance and resilience. The principles of digital financial inclusion and women’s economic empowerment are vital in this regard, offering pathways to enhance financial stability and empowerment, particularly for women, who are often the hardest hit in crises.
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