The "Silent War": Why Big Hearts Aren't Enough to Feed the World
- John Bessant
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Some glimmers of innovation hope from the other Munich security conference
Munich last week was even busier than usual. On one side of town, the Munich Security Conference (MSC) was in full swing. Platform speeches, high-stakes diplomacy, and hushed conversations about a world that’s moved beyond its VUCA label.
VUCA? Volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous – terms used by the Pentagon in 2001 to frame the challenges posed by the September 11th catastrophe.
But now we’re living in a BANI world – one which is Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, and Incomprehensible. And while we might smile at the proliferation of acronyms the underlying sense of crisis is inescapable.
That wasn’t the only crisis game in town. Just a few blocks away a different kind of security threat was being discussed. The World Food Programme’s annual Innovation Forum brought together another concerned audience, worried about tackling the silent conflict of global hunger.
The common thread? Both rooms agreed that the old ways of working are broken. In a world where the environment is increasingly hostile and where resources are tighter than ever, we don’t just need better plans; we need innovation.
We always have done, of course. And since its founding in 1961 as a UN agency tasked with relieving the huge problem of global hunger and food insecurity the WFP has been central to efforts to try and find novel ways of doing so. From pioneering the first humanitarian airlifts 60 years ago, WFP has had an eye for innovations that can help disrupt global hunger and advance the Sustainable Development Goals.
In many ways its efforts resemble a giant laboratory for the idea that necessity is the mother of invention. But big hearts and good intentions don’t feed 318 million people. Innovation has to be more than a slogan; success requires a core enabling process to translate a “glimmer of a good idea” into measurable value.
WFP was one of the humanitarian agencies to recognise early that anyone might get lucky once but if innovation is to make a difference then it needs a core enabling system. It has built on a host of innovation experiments and since 2015 has concentrated its efforts in the WFP Innovation Accelerator. Based in Munich but operating across the globe in close to a hundred countries and with 17 satellite country innovation units. As well as providing the venue for the Innovation Forum last week.