The World Food Programme (WFP) has been praised by world leaders and humanitarian groups after it was awarded 2020's Nobel Peace Prize.
The UN entity, which provided food to 100 million people last year, praised its staff after taking the honor -- the 101st time that the Nobel Peace Prize has been handed out.
Dan Smith, the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told CNN he saw the decision as "positive."
"There's an urgency to the issue at the moment, because after decades of progress, world hunger has started to rise in the last four years, driven primarily by climate change," he said.
The award could also serve as a rebuke to governments that discredit and pull funding from international groups -- a point the Nobel committee did not duck from making.
"Multilateralism seems to have a lack of respect these days," its chair Berit Reiss-Andersen said on Friday.
"When you follow international debate and discourse, it’s definitely a tendency that international institutions seem to be discredited more than, let’s say, 20 years ago," she said.
"When the UN was founded, it was exactly on a great emphasis on the universalism of the world," Reiss-Andersen added. "There also is a universal responsibility for the conditions of human mankind."
We're wrapping up our live coverage, but you can read more about the Nobel Committee's decision here.
International_Look26 on October 9th, 2020 at 09:53 UTC »
Worth bearing in mind that in addition to their work on food the WFP runs the UN's airlift programme and so has basically being handling all the humanitarian logistics for Covid-19.
Also not the stupidest thing in the world to give it to an organisation run by a pro-multilateralism pro-aid US Republican (David Beasley, former Congressman and Governor of South Carolina)
BigBadCheadleBorgs on October 9th, 2020 at 09:10 UTC »
The WFP has an app called Share The Meal. You can donate in 80 cent increments and donate to different programs or the WFP as a whole. Every time I think about buying something dumb, especially relapsing, I just open the app and buy a meal instead.
To anyone thanking me: Don't thank me, Thank Justice Fruit Pies.
Edit: If every person who upvoted donated .80$ this post could have fed 3318 people already. Something to think about.
REDDIT EDIT: They also have an app called FreeRice and Www.FreeRice.com. It's an ad supported quiz game and the ad revenue is used to fund the WFP
Edit: Thanks for the gold. I hope it was free. If not please just donate on the WFP app and comment if you'd like. I donated the cost of gold on the WFP app. I am quite poor though so please don't guild me again, I can't keep this up.
Edit to the Edit: I was informed awards help posts stand out and there are those who award for that reason and it could lead to more donations. So thank you all who have upvoted, awarded, donated or just told someone about the app or programme. Everything helps.
kinx on October 9th, 2020 at 09:04 UTC »
I like that decision. The Nobel Peace Prize shouldn't be a popularity contest.