The United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) has won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The WFP has also coordinated medical logistics during the coronavirus pandemic.
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. “The COVID-19 pandemic, which the WFP says could double hunger worldwide, had made it even more relevant.”
At one point, as airlines were cutting back flights, the WFP was running the largest operational airline in the world.
World Food Program
The Rome-based organization says it helps some 97 million people in about 88 countries each year. One in nine people worldwide still does not have enough to eat.
World Food Program said the Nobel prize was a clarion call “to its donors worldwide” 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,” WFP Executive Director David Beasley told Reuters
“All the wealth in the world today no one should go to bed hungry, much less starve to death.”
A report 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.
United Nations WFP runs a logistics service that has dispatched medical cargoes to over 120 countries throughout the pandemic. It helped 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.
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