UNOSSC and Partners Advance Solutions through the Solutions Lab to Strengthen Food Systems and Climate Resilience

Developing countries today face a convergence of complex and fast-evolving development challenges – from climate-induced food insecurity and environmental degradation to rising energy costs, fragmented rural economies, and persistent inequality. As highlighted in the UNOSSC South-South and Triangular Cooperation Solutions Lab concept, traditional, linear, and siloed approaches are no longer sufficient to respond to these interconnected issues. A new generation of agile, evidence-driven, and collaborative South-South and triangular cooperation solutions is required – solutions that leverage the diversity of experience, technologies, and knowledge across the Global South and the North. The UNOSSC South-South and Triangular Cooperation Solutions Lab was created by UNOSSC in partnership with WFP, IAEA, UNECE and Gulf Organization for Research and Development precisely to meet this need. Conceived as a demand-driven, data-informed, and innovation-focused platform, the Lab provides a structured mechanism for incubating, testing, improving, and scaling solutions that demonstrate strong potential for impact across regions. Its core mission – emphasized in the concept note – is to facilitate co-design, experimentation, evidence generation, scaling, and knowledge transfer among developing countries, while addressing priority challenges in renewable energy, agricultural productivity, food systems resilience, digital transformation, sustainable urban development and inclusive climate action. The two solutions featured below represent the first cohort of innovations supported through the Lab’s global Innovation Challenge. They illustrate, in concrete terms, how Southern-led creativity – when paired with the Lab’s methodological approach – can accelerate progress on the SDGs. 1. Boosting Nutrition & Climate Resilience through Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potatoes (OFSP), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

Development challenge / issue

Rural communities in DRC face severe malnutrition, unstable agricultural productivity, climate shocks, poor soils, and low rural incomes. Staple crops like cassava and maize are increasingly vulnerable to drought and erratic rainfall. Schoolchildren suffer from chronic malnutrition, and local economies lack resilient, high-value crops.

Description of the solution

The WFP project introduces Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potatoes (OFSP) supported by solar-powered irrigation through WFP’s Rapid Rural Transformation (RRT) solar mini-grid.

Key features include:

• • Climate-resilient OFSP cultivation
  • Women’s cooperatives integrated into the OFSP value chain
  • Use of renewable energy for irrigation and digital tools
  • Processing and commercialization of OFSP products
  • Integration into home-grown school feeding programmes

The pilot will support 1,000 schoolchildren and 300 community members around the Inye and Matou villages.

South-South and triangular cooperation potential

The solution provides strong South-South and triangular cooperation learning opportunities by linking:

• • African countries experimenting with climate-resilient crops
  • Regional exchanges on solar-powered agriculture

Portfolio fit

This solution fits into the UNOSSC’s South-South Galaxy’s nutrition-sensitive agriculture, solar-powered food systems, and rural transformation set of solutions. OFSP intersects climate resilience, nutrition, women’s economic empowerment, and renewable energy – threads that run across several Galaxy entries.

Within the broader portfolio of climate-smart agriculture solutions, OFSP provides a powerful example of integrating nutritious crops with decentralized renewable energy systems. It complements existing solutions on school feeding, community-led agricultural processing, and value-chain development, demonstrating how climate-resilient crops can strengthen both community livelihoods and institutional feeding programmes.

The model supports future portfolio development around solar-powered climate-smart agriculture, women-led value chains, and nutritious school feeding systems, offering a replicable template for other countries.

2. Nutrition-Sensitive Climate Trigger for Anticipatory Action (Guatemala)

Development challenge / issue

Guatemala faces one of the world’s highest chronic malnutrition rates, with 1 in 2 children affected. Rising climate shocks – droughts, hurricanes, food price spikes – exacerbate food insecurity and push families into negative coping mechanisms. Current anticipatory action systems rely mostly on climate data, without early nutrition signals.

Description of the solution

WFP Guatemala proposes the first-ever Nutrition-Sensitive Climate Trigger, combining:

• • Big data analytics
  • Early warning indicators for acute malnutrition, food prices, and growth monitoring
  • Climate forecasting models
  • Real-time dashboards for decision-makers

The innovation enables anticipatory action before malnutrition peaks, enabling governments and partners to act early and prevent deterioration.

South-South and triangular cooperation potential

This solution has exceptional South-South and triangular cooperation potential because:

• • Over 36 countries use anticipatory action frameworks that could integrate this tool
  • Strong potential for collaboration in the Dry Corridor (El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua)
  • Opportunities for Caribbean, African, and Asian countries (Haiti, Bangladesh, Mozambique)
  • Virtual training and policy dialogues facilitate rapid cross-border replication

Portfolio fit

Within the Galaxy portfolio, this solution expands the digital early warning and anticipatory action cluster – currently one of the fastest-growing areas in climate resilience solutions. The trigger links nutrition data, climate intelligence, and social protection systems, filling a gap where most solutions focus solely on meteorological triggers.

It complements the current set of good practices with emphasis on risk-informed social protection, child malnutrition prevention, and data-driven climate resilience, acting as a bridge across sectors that traditionally operate in silos.

This tool strengthens the available set of solutions by offering a predictive, analytics-based entry point that can integrate with agricultural, nutrition, and disaster-risk-management solutions across regions. It can become a portfolio flagship for digital public goods for climate and nutrition resilience.