WFP has the largest ICT emergency response capacity among United Nations humanitarian agencies, and is the UN’s lead agency for communications in support of humanitarian workers’ safety and security.

WFP’s ICT Emergency Preparedness and Response programme-funded by a partnership between the Vodafone Group Foundation and the United Nations Foundation-is producing three core outcomes: an emergency communications deployment guide, a software application and a cadre of ICT leaders trained to operate in grave security conditions.

It aims to double the number of ICT managers trained and on standby for deployment to the next disaster. These include staff from UN agencies, non-governmental organisations, and government stand-by partners.

"Effective communication is critical in enabling humanitarian assistance when disaster strikes," said Andrew Dunnett, Director of The Vodafone Group Foundation.

"Our aim is to provide training and technology to ensure aid workers can deliver effective humanitarian relief as quickly and efficiently as possible irrespective of the environment they have to work in," he said.

“We learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that a dollar spent in preparation for disaster goes much further than a dollar donated after the disaster,” said Paul Margie, Senior Director of Technology Partnerships at the UN Foundation. 

“The goal of this unique public-private partnership is to strengthen emergency response missions by creating greater technology coordination, faster response times, and more lives saved,” he said.

Twenty-one ICT experts participated in the programme, bringing combined emergency response experience that includes dozens of recent crises such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 South Asian earthquake, the 2006 war in Lebanon, and the ongoing crisis in Sudan. 

The two-week course was held from 19-30 March at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, among the most prestigious universities in Italy, which specializes in humanitarian training programmes.

WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency: each year, it gives food to an average of 90 million poor people to meet their nutritional needs, including 58 million hungry children, in at least 80 of the world's poorest countries. WFP - "We Feed People."

WFP Global School Feeding Campaign - For just 19 US cents a day, you can help WFP give children in poor countries a healthy meal at school-a gift of hope for a brighter future. 

WFP now provides RSS feeds to help journalists keep up with the latest press releases, videos and photos as they are published on WFP.org.

The UN Foundation was created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner’s historic $1 billion gift to support UN causes and activities. The UN Foundation builds and implements public-private partnerships to address the world’s most pressing problems and also works to broaden support for the UN through advocacy and public outreach. The UN Foundation is a public charity. 

The Vodafone Group Foundation (VGF) was created by Vodafone Group Plc to support charitable and community work by all Vodafone companies and their 21 Foundations around the world, and to fund selected charitable global initiatives directly.

Vodafone Group Foundation (VGF) aims to make social investments that help people across the world to have fuller lives by: Sharing the benefits of developments in mobile communications technology as widely as possible; Supporting local communities in which Vodafone’s customers, employees, investors and suppliers live; Protecting the environment.

The Vodafone Group Foundation is extremely proud to have helped more than 1000 charitable partners in less than three years, with donations of over £37.8 million funding.

For Press contacts: Adele Waugaman, UN Foundation, (+1) 202.778.1635, awaugaman@unfoundation.org;

Caroline Hurford, World Food Programme, +39-06-6513-2330, caroline.hurford@wfp.org;

Caroline Dewing, Vodafone Foundation, Aileen.Thompson@vodafone.com

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