Distinguished UN Organization: World Food Program Nobel Peace Prize

The United Nations World Food Program receives the Nobel Peace Prize this year. It is an honor for the fight against hunger and its commitment to peace in conflict zones.

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize goes to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). This was announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo. The UN organization will be honored, among other things, for its efforts in the fight against hunger and its contribution to the improvement of peace conditions in conflict zones, said committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen in the announcement of the award.

“A moment of pride”

The spokesperson for the World Food Program, Tomson Phiri, received the information about the award during a press conference on WFP’s work in Sudan. “This is a proud moment,” he said in an initial response. The award recognizes both employees and the many volunteers from around the world.

“We did it again this year and we did more than our duty,” said Phiri. Despite travel restrictions around the world, WFP supplied hungry people. “We were the largest airline in the world at one point.” WFP had chartered aircraft after commercial flights, which normally carry a lot of material for WFP, no longer flew.

There was no clear favorite

This time the Nobel Prize winners are endowed with ten million Swedish crowns (about 950,000 euros) per category, a million crowns more than last year. At that time, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received the Nobel Peace Prize for his initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.

The field of candidates for the world’s most prestigious political award was wide this year; no clear favorites emerged beforehand. The World Health Organization, WHO and climate activist Greta Thunberg were considered favorites in the betting shops. Experts suspected that the award could be awarded to an organization of journalists or young activists from Sudan or Somalia. The Nobel institutions themselves keep the names of the candidates secret – this year there were 211 personalities and 107 organizations – secret for 50 years.

The award is presented on the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel

Particularly famous winners of the Nobel Peace Prize were Nelson Mandela (1993), Mother Teresa (1979), and Albert Schweitzer (1952). In 2009 he was received by the then president of the United States, Barack Obama, and in 2017 he went to the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

The Nobel Peace Prize is the only one of all Nobel Prize winners that is announced and honored not in Stockholm, but in Oslo. The awards will be presented on December 10, the anniversary of the death of the inventor of dynamite and sponsor of the Alfred Nobel Prize. This year, the event will take place in both Oslo and Stockholm due to the coronavirus pandemic in a different and significantly smaller environment.