Posted on August, 2, 2018 at 10:14 am
THE World Food Programme (WFP) has launched innovation hub which is aimed at stimulating innovative thinking and developing national knowledge platform to enable Tanzania become a regional leader in inventive hunger solutions.
The launch of the hub is part of the implementation of its four-year Country Strategic Plan (CSP) aligning with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which aims to end poverty, reduce inequality, tackle climate change and ensure sustainable agriculture and food security.
Speaking during the launch in Dar es Salaam over the weekend, WFP executive director David Beasley said that the Tanzanian hub will be committed to piloting or scaling up new innovations with focus of addressing hunger.
“Innovation is critical to enable countries attain the Sustainable Development Goals, with the effects of climate change, inventive solutions are highly needed to overcome hunger challenges worldwide,” he said.
He noted that the Zero Hunger SDG goal 2 articulates a need for innovation, including a need to unleash the creativity of private sector and other stakeholders in harnessing the country’s comparative advantages and thereby boosting productivity, enhancing innovation and fostering economic integration.
WFP country representative Michael Dunford said that under the strategic plan, the agency focuses specifically on two of the 17 globally-adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG2 – Zero Hunger - and SDG17 – Partnerships for the Goals. SDG2 aims to eradicate hunger by the year 2030 while SDG 17 promotes partnerships, both public and private.
According to him, the new hub will offer workshops, local lectures, working groups thus becoming a local centre for innovation, contributing to enhanced cross-sector partnerships with government, academic institutions and entrepreneurship hubs.
He said that a local innovation programme will be offered to equip local entrepreneurs with the skills needed to drive innovations and develop solutions that accelerate the fight to end hunger.
“Through the hub, WFP will be running open calls for innovations, from either internally or externally with entrepreneurs, students and the general public. This will facilitate the sourcing of new ideas and talents around locally-relevant problems which then can imparted into workshops and capacity building programming,” he said.
He further said that the office will connect the country to the WFP innovations accelerator’s global network which includes designers, technical experts, international entrepreneurs, academic institutions, foundations and private sector companies.
Source: IPP Media