Attachments
Overview
Key messages
• WFP plays a key role in supporting the Government of India in making its food-based social protection systems more efficient, nutritious, inclusive, and climate-proof.
• WFP has intensified its efforts to test innovative pilots, provide technical inputs to the Government's food-based social protection systems, strengthen the capacities of government stakeholders, and generate actionable evidence for scaling up proven solutions.
• WFP facilitated the sharing of best practices to address hunger through the G20 Summit, International Year of Millets events, and supporting learning visits by high-level government missions from Ghana and Nigeria to India.
WFP supports India in achieving its SDG-2 vision and targets
India maintained its strong economic growth in 2023. Showing a steady recovery from the setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic, its national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at around 7 percent1 in 2022-23, marking one of the fastest growth rates in the world. Buoyed by this growth, the Government continued its investments in food-based social protection systems with an investment of USD 25 billion in food subsidies for 2023.
The flagship government initiative to distribute free food grains to nearly 800 million beneficiaries received a five-year extension in 2023, reaffirming the country's commitment to ensuring food and nutrition security. In addition, to address persistent anemia, the Government has nearly achieved full coverage of fortified rice3 in its food-based social protection programmes. At the same time, rising prices of food commodities in domestic markets due to weather extremities and reduction in government stocks due to the supply of free wheat during COVID-19 prompted the Government to ban the export of commodities such as some varieties of rice and onions4,5; the 2022 export restrictions on wheat products continued until the end of 2023.
WFP's next generation, 5-year country strategic plan (CSP, 2023-2027) continues to address national priorities in food and nutrition security through capacity strengthening and technical support for national social protection programmes and government schemes. Aligned with the four strategic outcomes of this new CSP, WFP’s technical support focuses on making national food-based social protection systems and other government schemes more efficient, nutritious, inclusive and climate-proof. WFP’s high-quality support was greatly appreciated by the Government of India and further advanced their collaborative partnership.
In 2023, WFP supported the Government in its expansion of the automated grain dispensing machine, Annapurti, to six states; efficiently and transparently providing entitlements to nearly 200,000 beneficiaries. WFP also progressed in assisting state governments to optimize supply routes for food grains under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). The transportation routes and costs for all 31 States/Union Territories were reviewed and optimized.
WFP supported seven state governments in providing fortified rice under all food-based social protection systems, leading to nearly 400 million beneficiaries receiving fortified rice in 2023 in WFP-supported States6 . Nearly 12 million young children, adolescent girls, pregnant and breastfeeding women received nutritious food through the take-home-ration initiative supported by WFP in three states. Advancing the Government’s vision of school nutrition gardens, WFP supported the Government by setting up 1,780 school kitchen gardens and conducting training on nutritious diets to more than 6,000 cooks hired by government schools.
WFP also intensified efforts to support the government’s vision of climate-resilient agriculture. The initiative to strengthen the resilience of small and marginal farmers against the worsening impacts of climate change is due to be launched in selected states. Innovative pilots on using solar-based, post-harvest technologies were piloted in Odisha.
With India celebrating the International Year of Millets, WFP provided the Government with actionable evidence on millet production and consumption and played a key role in advocating for millets through multiple forums in the G20 Summit in New Delhi.
On disability and inclusion, WFP engaged with women collectives in the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) to strengthen their capacities in using digital and financial resources for socio-economic empowerment. Technical trainings were conducted, for instance, with women collectives in Odisha trained to operate and manage solar-powered cold storage units. More innovative pilots are planned with the State Governments of Odisha, Haryana, and Assam.
WFP strengthened its support to Central and State Governments on National Evaluation Capacity Development (NECD). WFP played a key role in advocating for evaluation of India’s landmark food security and nutrition legislation - the National Food Security Act, 2013. The evaluation is set to be launched in early 2024. Two strategic assessments on impacts of rice fortification were conducted by WFP in Odisha and Uttar Pradesh to provide credible and actionable evidence to the Government. A comprehensive Rajasthan Food and Nutrition Security Analysis 2023 report was completed for the State Government, with strategic recommendations for policy makers.
In terms of monitoring and capacity strengthening on evaluations, WFP developed and handed over an interactive dashboard to track SDG-2 indicators to the State of Rajasthan. WFP enhanced the capacity of research officers from 30 countries on monitoring and evaluating food security initiatives as part of the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme of the Ministry of External Affairs. WFP also conducted several technical trainings for government officers at the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO) and NITI Aayog, the apex monitoring and evaluation agency of the Government.
WFP facilitated sharing of knowledge and solutions developed in India with the global south. This included supporting a mission from officials from the Government of Ghana to learn from India’s disaster management and early warning systems for emergency preparedness and response. WFP also facilitated a mission from the Government of Nigeria to understand India’s rice fortification experiences and implementation system.
As the convenor of the Food Security and Nutrition outcome group under the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF, 2023-27), WFP continues to play a key role in streamlining the joint inter-agency efforts, collaboration, and advocacy.
WFP’s main partners include the Ministry of Agriculture (nodal ministry), the Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change, the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO), NITI Aayog, the National Institute of Disaster Management, the Food Safety Standards Authority of India, the Departments of Food and Public Distribution (national and at Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Kerala, Meghalaya, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh state levels), the Mission Shakti in Odisha, the Department of Women and Child Development (Odisha, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh), the State Rural Livelihoods Mission in Uttar Pradesh, the Ministry of Education, Departments of Education (Odisha, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh), the Planning Departments in Odisha and Rajasthan, the Odisha Millet Mission, the Odisha Department of Agriculture, and the Assam Department of Agriculture. WFP also continued partnering with the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi and initiated a partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay.