Mapped out The

The world hunger problem is immense. According to the United Nations, as many as 811 million people will go to bed hungry tonight. Every ten seconds, somewhere in our world a child dies of starvation and malnutrition. The Zero Hunger Lab helps to achieve global food security using mathematics. We call it ‘bytes for bites’. Our mission is to make people independent of food aid so that they themselves can ensure sustainable food security. We do this not only in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but also in the Netherlands, where more than 150,000 people depend on food banks for their “daily bread”. Reducing the world’s hunger problem requires not only more efficient and effective (emergency) food aid. Even more important is to increase local capacity so that farmers, businesses, and communities can provide sustainable

HOUTEN, the Netherlands

From Houten, the activities of 171 food banks in the Netherlands are supported. ZHL researchers are helping the volunteer organization come up with smart solutions to help even more people more successfully.

PANAMA

This is the work location of the Red Cross regional coordinator who coordinates emergency aid for the Americas and, through the Giro555 network, advises our researchers on the applicability and impact of ZHL solutions.

GHANA

Tens of thousands of palm oil farmers have worked with Solidaridad experts over the past four years on productivity, sustainability, and resilience. ZHL helps with smart dashboards to increase scale and impact globally quickly and properly.

BURUNDI

ZOA has invested heavily to help returning refugees in Burundi build new lives. We help ZOA’s experts analyze their CASH programs to make ever better choices in the best interest of refugees.

food security themselves and become independent of aid. That’s why Zero Hunger Lab researchers work not only from the campus in Tilburg, but especially on site with organizations that have safe access to people in need, that have a good understanding of how to make communities resilient and their food systems sustainable, and that co-create solutions with sustainable impact together with those same communities. More than twenty researchers from Tilburg University work within the lab. They collaborate on more than forty research projects with numerous partners, including the World Food Programme, Voedselbanken Nederland, Solidaridad, Welthungerhilfe, Oxfam, ZOA, World Bank, INSEAD Humanitarian Research Group, Wageningen University & Research, Nuffic, and Giro555.

SUMATRA

When 70 percent of the roads are unknown, how do you efficiently get relief supplies from A to B? We used GPS tracks to map infrastructure and provide advice.

SOMALIA

With specialists from Wageningen University & Research and FAO, and with Somali students, we are developing data science trainings so that people in the Horn of Africa can develop and implement their own ZHL tools.

MOZAMBIQUE

Using data from recent natural disasters in, for example, Mozambique and the humanitarian experts at Welthungerhilfe, we have conducted research to ensure that relief supplies reach people in need faster and more successfully.

SOUTH SUDAN

The World Food Programme (UN) organizes food aid in South Sudan. Together with the emergency aid experts, we have developed an innovative solution that allows 20 percent more people to be helped for the same money; not only in Bentiu, but soon in eighty countries where the WFP provides aid.