Not famine as a method of war, no more

Oct 17

October 17, 2020

Dragica Pajević Alp was at his home in Belgrade last Friday. Since she currently works at Kairo, it was a typical weekend morning. He was having a cup of tea and checking his emails when breaking news surfaced from the BBC app: the Nobel Peace Prize to the World Food Program, WFP.

“It was very emotional. I read it over and over and over again to make sure it was true, ”Dragica told the media from his hometown, Banja Luka. She has been working with WFP since 1997. She is one in ten humanitarian women in Bosnia and Herzegovina out of 18,000 WFP employees.

Last year, 135 million people suffered from hunger, the highest number in many years.

“With this year’s award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to turn the eyes of the world to the millions of people who suffer or face the threat of hunger. WFP plays a key role in multilateral cooperation to make food security an instrument of peace, and has made a strong contribution to the mobilization of UN member states to combat the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict ” stated the Committee (on October 9).

Thanks to WFP, two years ago, the UN Security Council, for the first time explicitly addressed the link between conflict and hunger, many call it a vicious circle.

“We will never reach the goal of zero hunger unless we also end war and armed conflict,” concluded the Nobel Committee.

Dragica led WFP’s emergency operation in Liberia due to the Ebola crisis five years ago. She said she would never forget what her friend from the Liberian government told her.

“Who has not been hungry, does not know the terrible pain of hunger, does not know the feeling of hopelessness of a man who does not know if he will have the next meal, if he will be able to feed his children or if he will watch them die. Hunger is a beast and the hopelessness associated with it causes a person to do everything possible to alleviate it. Food in itself may not be peace, but when it runs out, day after day, month after month, almost inevitably, hunger will lead to war, ”he recalls.

Similarly, in several African and Asian countries, the combination of violent conflict and COVID-19 dramatically increased the number of people living on the brink of starvation.

“Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos,” said WFP.

Image by Sasin Tipchai