North Side native celebrates Nobel Peace Prize win in Rome
When the Nobel Peace Prize was announced, Anna Horner was in her office at the headquarters of the World Food Program in Rome.
It’s normally crowded, but most people are working from home.
“There were about 100 of us,” said Ms. Horner, a native Pittsburgher who was raised on the Central North Side. “At 11 a.m. my time, I got a message from a friend: ‘Did you see the news? I can’t stop crying.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ and she said The New York Times had reported the news, and then messages started flying.”
The news Oct. 9 was that the United Nations’ World Food Program, which was established almost 60 years ago to alleviate hunger, had won the most prestigious prize that the Norwegian Nobel Committee awards every year.
The Nobel committee commended the WFP for “its efforts to combat hunger and prevent hunger from being used as a weapon of war. The need for international solidarity and multilateral cooperation is more conspicuous than ever.”
The WFP serves about 100 million people in 80 countries, mostly in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The announcement inspired a flurry of excitement as the staff at headquarters gathered for a celebration in its garden.
“We had a little Champagne,” Ms. Horner said. “We rounded up whatever people had and drank it out of little plastic cups.
“It was quite a surprise, because many people weren’t aware we had been nominated,” she said. “But it was such a validation of the work we do and a recognition that the link between hunger and conflict are deep, both as cause and consequence.”
Ms. Horner, 41, is the WFP’s chief of innovative finance and knowledge management for nutrition. She has worked there for 17 years and, until recently, worked in the field, mostly in Senegal. She has also worked in Mali, Niger, Guinea and the Ivory Coast.
She and her husband, William Affif, who also works for the U.N. agency, have two daughters, ages 1 and 2.
“After 28 years working with WFP on humanitarian emergencies
around the world, hearing that the organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was extremely humbling, ”said Mr. Affif.
“It is a beautiful recognition of the extensive work done over the past 60 years by all our colleagues and partners around the world to end food insecurity and malnutrition. It also draws much-needed attention to the estimated 690 million people in the world who struggle withhunger and how critical continuing this work is at a time when many positive advances are being reversed by conflicts, natural disasters andthe pandemic. We are extremely proud.”
Ms. Horner said the sharp drop in air travel during the pandemic has compelled the WFP to expand its humanitarian air service, which previously had served places that don’t have commercial airports.
As a public health nutritionist, she has been involved in nutritional programs that focus on women and children. In her current role, “I look into innovative ways we can leverage support for nutritional programs.”
Each country the WFP serveshas its own objectives and different needs. It operates on $7.5 billion a year, but that’s about half the ideal amount, she said. The agency depends on financial support from donor nations, including the United States, the European Union, Australiaand Japan.
“We just need Jeff Bezos [founder of Amazon] to give us a percentage of his money, and we’d be fine. When we go into countries, there are different levels of perfection, and COVID wasn’t on the agenda last year.”
Ms. Horner, who is fluent in French, is a graduate of Vassar College, with degrees in women’s studies and French. She has three graduate degrees in international development from the Institute of Political Studies inParis and in international studies and public health nutrition from the University of London. But she also creditsher earlier education forher success.
“I’m a graduate of the Pittsburgh Public Schools — Martin Luther King Elementary,Rogers Middle and Schenley High — and I’m quite proud of the education I got there and how it set me upfor a global career.”