In Nobel Prize online ceremony, World Food Programme warns of hunger pandemic

World Food
Programme (WFP) on Thursday warned of a “hunger pandemic” caused by
coronavirus which could be worse than coronavirus pandemic in the Nobel Prize
ceremony conducted online this year, reported AFP.

WFP won 2020
Nobel prize for Peace on October 9. They were awarded the prize for their
efforts “to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and
conflict”, said Berit Reiss-Andersen, committee chairwoman of Nobel
Prize.

“Because of so many wars, climate change, the widespread
use of hunger as a political and military weapon, and a global health pandemic
that makes all of that exponentially worse, 270 million people are marching
toward starvation,” WFP executive director David Beasley said.

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“Failure to address their needs will cause a hunger
pandemic which will dwarf the impact of Covid,” he added.

Beasley made his remarks broadcast from the WFP’s
headquarters in Rome.

The COVID-19 pandemic had forced Nobel committee to conduct
this grand ceremony online which used to happen every year in Stockholm. This
unusual time has also pushed the Nobel committee to send the Nobel medals and
diplomas to the winners in a diplomatic pouch.

The ceremony took place as an online broadcast, in which most
of them were pre-recorded.

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“This Nobel Peace Prize is more than a thank you. It is a
call to action,” Beasley said.

“Famine is at humanity’s
doorstep”, he said, and “food is the pathway to peace.”

“We have been reminded several times about the seriousness of
global cooperation in solving humanitarian crisis and only science will help us
to discover solutions to any problems we may face”, he added.