WFP has decades of experience as a leading humanitarian retailer, working with importers, manufacturers, wholesalers, transporters, local shopkeepers and small-scale farmers to deliver food assistance to an average 80 million people every year. We are the recognized leader in humanitarian logistics, as well as the world’s largest organization providing cash-based transfers in emergencies.
As part of our food assistance interventions, WFP also seeks to improve the livelihoods of local communities and businesses in locations where we operate. In 2015, WFP designed and launched a retail engagement strategy to increase the purchasing power for all customers of WFP-contracted shops by lowering shelf prices.
In essence, it is a commercial approach to delivering humanitarian assistance through the retail sector. To develop and roll out the strategy, WFP engaged a number of private sector retail industry experts. Together with industry professionals, WFP applies its supply chain skills and shares them with contracted merchants to make their operations more efficient and cost effective.
WFP’s retail engagement strategy has three main objectives:
To increase the purchasing power of all customers of WFP-contracted shops by lowering shelf prices through improved supply chains;
To enhance accountability, transparency, internal controls, and the overall effectiveness of WFP programmes through the use of itemized sales data;
To develop the capacity of the local retail sector, so that it is able to sustain gains after WFP leaves.
