UN World Food Programme awarded Nobel Peace Prize

THE Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the World Food Programme yesterday for feeding millions of people from Yemen to North Korea, with the coronavirus pandemic pushing millions more into hunger.

The programme was “a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict”, Berit Reiss-andersen, the Nobel committee chairman, said on unveiling the winner in Oslo.

“This is a powerful reminder to the world that peace and #Zerohunger go hand-in-hand,” the Rome-based organisation said on Twitter. Founded in 1961, the UN body helped 97 million people last year, distributing 15 billion rations to people in 88 countries.

Whether delivering food by helicopter or on the back of an elephant or a camel, the programme prides itself on being “the leading humanitarian organisation” in a world where, by its own estimates, about 690 million people – one in 11 – go to bed on an empty stomach.

David Beasley, the programme’s executive director, said the agency was “deeply humbled” by winning the prize, adding it had rendered him “speechless”. In the Central African Republic, the worst country for food insecurity, Vigno Hounkanli, the agency spokesman, said the prize was a “recognition for all the work the programme does in the most difficult crises” across the globe.

Despite making progress over the past three decades, the UN’S goal to eradicate hunger by 2030 appears out of reach if current trends continue, according to experts. Yemen, which is l i ving through what the UN has described as the “largest humanitarian crisis in the world”, is a stark example of how war and hunger go hand-in-hand, the programme said.

The outlook f or the world has grown bleaker this year because of the continuing coronavirus pandemic, which has led to earnings losses, made food more expensive and disrupted supply chains.