Oslo, Norway/Geneva, Switzerland
Reuters
The United Nations’ World Food Programme, which has coordinated medical logistics during the coronavirus pandemic, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in what its boss said was a call to action that no one should go hungry with the wealth in the world today.
The head of the awards committee called the WFP a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict, and said the COVID-19 pandemic, which the WFP says could double hunger worldwide, had made it even more relevant.
A man walks past a logo of the World Food Program at their headquarters after the WFP won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, in Rome, Italy, on 9th October. PICTURE: Reuters/Remo Casilli
At one point at the height of the pandemic, as airlines were cutting back flights, the WFP was running the largest operational airline in the world, a WFP spokesman said.
The Rome-based organisation 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.
WHAT IS THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME AND WHAT DOES IT DO?
The United Nations’ World Food Programme, which won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for its efforts to combat hunger and promote peace, was founded in 1961 at the request of US President Dwight Eisenhower.
• The WFP began as an experiment to see if the United Nations system could deliver food aid. Its first disaster relief operation was to help after an earthquake hit in Iran in 1962.
• It gained permanent status in 1965 and calls itself the world’s largest humanitarian organisation, dedicated to “saving lives in emergencies, building prosperity and supporting a sustainable future for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change”.
• It says that, on any given day it has 5,600 trucks, 30 ships and nearly 100 planes on the move, delivering food and other assistance. In 2019 it assisted 97 million people, the largest number since 2012, in 88 countries.
• During the coronavirus pandemic, the WFP’s logistics service dispatched medical cargoes to over 120 countries. It also provided passenger services to ferry humanitarian and health workers where commercial flights were unavailable.
• In 1989, the WFP staged what it says is the biggest humanitarian airdrop in history. Twenty cargo aircraft flew three sorties a day to transport 1.5 million tonnes of food as part of ‘Operation Lifeline Sudan’, in which UN agencies and non-governmental organisations cooperated to alleviate a famine caused by civil war.
• The WFP is funded by voluntary donations, mainly from governments but also from companies and private donors. In 2019, it raised $US8 billion. It is governed by a 36-member executive board and has 90,000 staff, of whom some 90 per cent are based in the countries where the agency provides assistance.
• Its executive director traditionally comes from the United States. The current chief is David Beasley, a Republican politician who was nominated by President Donald Trump’s administration and has been in the job since April, 2017.
• The WFP is one of three UN food aid organisations based in Rome. Its sister bodies are the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
• It says it is currently dealing with six food emergencies besides COVID. These are in the Democratic Republic of Congo, north-eastern Nigeria, Sahel, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
– GAVIN JONES and CRISPIAN BALMER, Reuters
WFP Executive Director David Beasley told Reuters the prize was a clarion call “to our donors around the world” and “to the billionaires who are making billions off COVID”.
“It’s a call to action to not let anyone die from starvation, it’s a call to action that we’ve got to save and help our friends, our brothers, our sisters around the world,” he said.
“All the wealth in the world today no one should go to bed hungry, much less starve to death.”
Only this week, a report by UBS and PwC found billionaire wealth had reached a record high during the pandemic, helped by a rally in stock prices.
“The need for international solidarity and multilateral cooperation is more conspicuous than ever,” Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told a news conference.
WFP runs a logistics service that has dispatched medical cargoes to over 120 countries throughout the pandemic to help governments and health partners fighting COVID-19.
It has also provided passenger services to ferry humanitarian and health workers where commercial flights were unavailable.
“Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos,” the Nobel committee said in its citation.
“International cooperation”
Beasley, travelling in Niger, posted a video statement on social media praising the “WFP family”.
“They are out there in the most difficult, complex places in the world, where there’s war, conflict, climate extremes – it doesn’t matter. They are out there and they deserve this award…” he said.
In Geneva, WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri told reporters: “When everything went into shutdown mode, the World Food Programme was there. When everyone was leaving and we were going into lockdowns, the World Food Programme had to provide the logistical support that the world deserved, that the world needed.”
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,” he told Reuters.
“Unfortunately, in too many quarters, especially among the great powers, there is a declining appetite for cooperation.”
He noted that, after declining for several decades, world hunger had been on the rise again since 2016.
The United Nations, which turns 75 this month, has itself won the Nobel Peace Prize in the past, as have several of its agencies, including the High Commissioner for Refugees, the UNICEF children’s fund and its peacekeeping forces.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee plans to go ahead with an award ceremony, albeit in a reduced format due to the pandemic, in Oslo on 10th December, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.
The Nobel Peace Prize is worth 10 million Swedish crowns, or around $US1.1 million.
– Additional reporting by TERJE SOLSVIK, VICTORIA KLESTY and NORA BULI in Oslo, EMMA FARGE in Geneva and SOULEYMANE AG ANARA in Niamey.
