WASHINGTON — If the world is serious about achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, United Nations agencies must consider new ways of working that include innovation and private sector collaboration, according to Bernhard Kowatsch, head of the World Food Programme’s Innovation Accelerator.
“We have a tradition of scaling innovations, but the recognition was [that] it’s not as systematic, and we need to do better at systematically identifying those innovations that can have the best impact for the people that we serve,” Kowatsch said of the raison d'être for his organization, which was established in 2015 and operates in Munich, apart from WFP’s Rome headquarters.
“What we do is identify, support, and scale innovations that can help us in emergency response to be more effective and to sustainably end hunger.”