OSLO/GENEVA (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.
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.
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.