Published: 17:26, October 9, 2020 | Updated: 15:00, June 5, 2023
UN World Food Programme wins 2020 Nobel Peace Prize
By Reuters

Displaced Yemenis receive humanitarian aid donated by the World Food Programme (WFP) in cooperation with the Danish Refugee Council, in the northern province of Hajjah, Yemen, on Dec 30, 2019. (ESSA AHMED / AFP)

OSLO - The United Nations food agency, the World Food Programme (WFP), won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for its efforts to combat hunger and improve conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas.

The Rome-based organization says it helps some 97 million people in about 88 countries each year and that one in nine people worldwide still do not have enough to eat.

The World Food Programme is a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict, with the COVID-19 outbreak further boosting its relevance, Chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said

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"The need for international solidarity and multilateral cooperation is more conspicuous than ever," Chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said at a news conference.

The WFP is a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict, with the COVID-19 outbreak further boosting its relevance, she said.

"The coronavirus pandemic has contributed to a strong upsurge in the number of victims of hunger in the world," the Nobel committee said in its citation.

"Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos ...

"There is an estimate within the World Food Programme that... there will be 265 million starving people within a year, so of course this is also a call to the international community not to underfund the World Food Programme."


'Over and above the call of duty'

WFP responded by tweeting its thanks for "recognition of the work of WFP staff who put their lives on the line every day to bring food and assistance to more than 100 million hungry children, women and men across the world".

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At a briefing in Geneva, WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri told reporters:

"For WFP this year we have gone over and above the call of duty...

"Everything went into shutdown following nationwide and global restrictions following COVID-19. The WFP stepped up to the plate, we were able to connect communities. At one point, we were the biggest airline in the world when most if not all commercial airlines had ground to halt."

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Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said the Norwegian Nobel Committee had wanted to send a message of both hope and "support for international cooperation".

"Hunger, like climate change, the pandemic and other issues, is a world problem that can only be properly addressed through cooperation. The World Food Programme is an institution of global cooperation," he told Reuters.

"Unfortunately in too many quarters, especially among the great powers, there is a declining appetite for cooperation," he said, adding that world hunger was increasing again, having declining for several decades until 2016.