About

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger and promoting food security. 

WFP works in over 100 countries and territories, delivering food assistance in emergencies and partnering with governments to strengthen national capacities for long-term food systems resilience.

This platform showcases WFP’s commitment to SSTC as a key pathway for countries to share experiences, technologies, and solutions that accelerate progress toward ending hunger and to reach the most vulnerable.

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Who we are

WFP is a global leader in humanitarian action and development support, assisting more than 150 million people annually through emergency relief and capacity-strengthening programmes. Our mandate is to save lives in times of crisis and build resilient communities through sustainable solutions to hunger. Our global network—spanning humanitarian and development contexts—makes us uniquely positioned to broker practical, country-led cooperation.

Some of the principles that guide WFP’s SSTC work include:

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Leave No One Behind

Leave No One Behind

WFP engagement in SSTC will benefit those most at risk of being left behind (such as women and girls, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, minority language speakers and those with multiple, intersecting needs) and their communities.

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Women's Rights

Women's Rights

SSTC brokered and facilitated by WFP will consider the equal rights of girls, boys, women, and men, ensuring access to services, opportunities, and resources.

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Country Ownership

Country Ownership

WFP will facilitate SSTC at the national, subnational, and community levels, responding to country demand and anchoring support in national policies and programmes. People have decision-making power and ownership over processes, ensuring a right to food and the ability to express their priorities regarding local solutions.

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Added Value

Added Value

WFP engages in SSTC when it can add value through its networks, expertise, visibility, global reach, cost-effectiveness, and operational capacity, ensuring a high return on investment and results at scale.

innovation

Innovation

Innovation

WFP supports countries in sharing innovative practices as well as in co-creating solutions to country priorities that are inclusive, sustainable, and responsive to their needs and circumstances.

Strengthening country systems

Strengthening Country Systems & Capacity

Strengthening Country Systems & Capacity

In facilitating SSTC, WFP focuses on strengthening national systems and institutions.

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Why does WFP support SSTC?

South-South and Triangular Cooperation empowers countries to share sustainable, cost-effective, and scalable solutions to food security and nutrition. WFP sees SSTC as a key enabler of national ownership, localization of SDG 2 targets, and long-term resilience.

WFP facilitates effective, results-oriented, and demand-driven SSTC to support country-led efforts toward achieving SDG 2 and SDG 17 with a focus on the most vulnerable and food-insecure populations. In doing so, WFP strengthens host governments’ national ability and independence to drive their own development process and leverages multi-stakeholder partnerships to promote food security, improve nutrition and strengthen resilience.

In our work, we partner with governments, communities, UN agencies, and other stakeholders to support national priorities—from food systems transformation and nutrition to school feeding and social protection. Through our global field presence and technical expertise, WFP enables countries to learn from each other and share knowledge and expertise through SSTC. This work complements traditional assistance by building national capacity, fostering innovation, and creating pathways for governments to invest in each other’s success.

Activities

By connecting national actors, including governments, academia, civil society and private sector and facilitating SSTC through a wide range of modalities, WFP is a partner to:
Drive policy

Drive Policy

Drive Policy

Drive change at the policy level by incentivizing policymakers to prioritize investments in zero hunger through generating evidence, advocating, and giving exposure to other countries’ experiences.

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Provide Technical Support

Provide Technical Support

Empower experts at the technical level expanding the skills and capacities of national experts to design and implement inclusive and gender-transformative food security and nutrition programmes through training, technology transfer, peer learning and joint problem solving.

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Scaling Innovations

Scaling Innovations

Scaling up innovations at grassroot level by testing what works and what doesn’t in the field, facilitating joint problem analysis, peer coaching and farmers-to-farmers exchanges to build resilience and improve the nutrition of people and communities affected by the protracted crisis while leveraging WFP’s Innovation Accelerator.

Advantages

Some of WFP’s comparative advantages as a SSTC broker for host governments include:

Strong field presence and operational capacity

Strong field presence and operational capacity

Strong deep field presence and direct access to grassroot level in over 100 countries to enable the most vulnerable to benefit from SSTC initiatives and strong operational capacity of delivering as an effective and reliable partner in some of the world’s most difficult places, including conflict-affected countries, to ensure effective and timely operationalization of SSTC activities on the ground.

Global outreach

Global outreach

Global outreach and a proven ability for a rapid and scalable response. As the largest humanitarian and development UN organization with more than 152 million people assisted globally, and with over a decade of experience in facilitating SSTC, WFP is uniquely positioned to support countries to successfully scale up innovations from the Global South. 

Knowledge of local contexts

Knowledge of local contexts

Direct knowledge of local contexts to identify relevant needs/offers, enable effective matchmaking, and facilitate solutions adaptation in recipient countries.

Trust

Trust

Trust by host governments and donors as partners for tackling hunger and malnutrition challenges in some of the world’s most difficult places and conditions; and sustainable partnerships.

Wide network

Wide network

Network of Centres of Excellence in Brazil, China and Côte d’Ivoire that leverages an institutionalized relationship with key SSTC provider countries to support providers’ engagement in SSTC while increasing their visibility and helping recipient countries to tap into the expertise of the world’s largest SSTC providers.

Innovative approaches

Innovative approaches

Focus on innovation (technologies and digital SSTC business models) to support provider countries in packaging their solutions while helping recipient countries test/adapt new solutions from the Global South.

What we do – commonly used modalities

WFP supports SSTC through a variety of practical and demand-driven modalities, including:

Modalities

We tailor each engagement to country needs, to support national priorities and aligned with WFP’s Country Strategic Plans.

View all tools and modalities

Results

WFP’s SSTC engagements are yielding measurable, results that support stronger national food systems, enhanced institutional capacities, and accelerated progress toward SDG 2: Zero Hunger and SDG 17: Partnerships for the goals.

Through more than 80 SSTC initiatives since 2015, WFP has supported governments in designing and scaling up nationally owned solutions across priority areas such as social protection, school feeding, smallholder market access, climate resilience, and food systems governance. Results include strengthened policy frameworks, empowered local institutions, and improved food and nutrition outcomes.

Since 2015, WFP has had a policy in place on SSTC that guided work at the country, regional and global levels. It marked an important milestone by making the commitment of WFP to broadening its support for SSTC explicit and setting out parameters for how WFP would engage in SSTC.

 

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The 2021 evaluation of WFP’s policy on SSTC recognized the significant growth of WFP’s work on SSTC, and recommended actions to expand and improve the effectiveness of the SSTC portfolio. One of the key recommendations was to update the WFP’s SSTC policy in 2023 to better reflect WFP’s strategic development, the changes in the international context as well as the growth and achievements of WFP’s work in SSTC over the past seven years.


The development of 2023 SSTC policy involved extensive consultations with over 300 WFP stakeholders across all levels, with a significant involvement of country level leadership and staff. The updated policy provides a robust and evidence-based account of WFP’s SSTC engagement and results. Please see the WFP SSTC Policy here.


WFP is not only supporting the strengthening of national capacities but also catalyzing country-owned investments in hunger solutions—moving from aid to ownership of solutions, and from pilots to policy.

Frequently asked questions

What is South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC)?

South-South Cooperation refers to the exchange of knowledge, experience, technologies, and resources between two or more developing countries. Triangular Cooperation adds the support of a third partner—often a donor or multilateral organization—that facilitates or funds the exchange. SSTC is recognized as a key modality to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through inclusive and country-led development.

Why is WFP involved in SSTC?

WFP supports SSTC as a strategic tool to strengthen national capacities in food security, nutrition, and resilience by leveraging the technical and financial resources of countries from the Global South. With a presence in over 120 countries and territories, WFP is uniquely positioned to connect countries with shared development challenges and facilitate peer-to-peer exchanges that accelerate food security and nutrition results.

What makes WFP’s SSTC approach effective?

WFP takes a needs-based, demand-driven approach, aligning all SSTC activities with national priorities and Country Strategic Plans (CSPs). By leveraging WFP’s technical expertise, field presence, and policy partnerships, we ensure that SSTC initiatives are practical, scalable, and results focused.

What thematic areas does WFP support through SSTC?

WFP-facilitated SSTC initiatives have delivered results across:

  • Shock-responsive and adaptive social protection
  • Home-grown school feeding and local procurement
  • Smallholder farmer market access
  • Nutrition-sensitive programming
  • Climate resilience and early warning systems
  • Digital transformation for food and cash transfers
  • And more
How can partners support SSTC efforts?
  • Technical expertise to be provided by provider countries (e.g. line ministries, national agencies, research institutions) through training, technology transfer, peer learning to national actors in recipient countries to expand their skills and capacities at technical level.
  • Financial backing includes providing funding for the preparation, operationalization and follow-up phases of a SSTC initiative or project (e.g., in-kind).
  • Advocacy includes leveraging Southern partners’ experience, good practices and progress on SDG 2 to incentivize policymakers in other countries from the Global South to invest and prioritize food security and nutrition through policy dialogues, high level exposure visits, etc.

WFP welcomes partnerships with a wide range of actors at global, regional and local level to scale proven solutions and promote sustainable, country-led investments in food systems.

How are results monitored and evaluated?

WFP integrates SSTC within existing monitoring frameworks at the country and corporate level. Results are tracked through WFP’s Corporate Results Framework and complemented by case studies, feedback from national partners, and independent evaluations where applicable.

How can my organization request SSTC support from WFP?

National governments and partners interested in SSTC collaboration can reach out via the platform’s contact form here. Requests are reviewed based on alignment with national priorities, feasibility, and potential for scale.

 

History

  • 1974

    UNOSSC was established to promote, coordinate and support SSTC.

  • 1978

    The Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (BAPA) outlined a framework and principles for collaboration among developing countries.

  • 2010

    The Nairobi outcome document established updated principles for SSTC and consolidated the roles of United Nations agencies as SSTC brokers.

  • 2011

    The first WFP Centre of Excellence (CoE) to foster SSTC on Brazil's experiences in fighting hunger was launched by the Government of Brazil and WFP.

  • 2015

    A dedicated SSTC focal point was hired in HQ, Programme Division, to develop guidance for WFP country offices and implement WFPs policy. The RBAs created a SSTC working group to promote collaboration and share information.

  • 2015

    WFP's South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) Policy was adopted by the Executive Board.

  • 2015

    The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development specifically referred to SSTC as a means to achieve the SDGs.

  • 2016

    The second WFP Centre of Excellence was established in Beijing - the WFP China Centre of Excellence.

  • 2016

    WFP developed guidance, tools, training modules and good practices to assist country offices identify, prioritize and design appropriate SSTC opportunities and incorporate them into WFP's country plans.

  • 2019

    Forty years after BAPA, high-level representatives of governments gathered in Buenos Aires to renew their commitment to SSTC through the BAPA+40. Outcome Document. WFP set up a third CoE with the Government of Côte d’Ivoire.

  • 2020

    WFP’s SSTC Unit developed established in HQ  

  • 2023

    WFP’s SSTC Policy update approved by the Executive Board.  

  • 2024

    WFP’s SSTC Unit moves from Programme and Policy to Multilateral and Programme Country Partnerships Division