World Food Program Wins 2020 Nobel Peace Prize

Medical supplies are seen on the tarmac before being loaded to an aircraft chartered by the U.N. World Food Programme to help developing countries hit by the COVID-19 outbreak, at Liege airport, Belgium, April 30, 2020. (Francois Lenoir/Reuters)

OSLO—The World Food Program (WFP) on Friday won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to combat hunger and food insecurity around the globe.

The announcement was made in Oslo by Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Nobel Committee.

The Nobel Committee said that the coronavirus pandemic has added to the hunger faced by millions of people around the world and called on governments to ensure that WFP and other aid organizations receive the financial support necessary to feed them.

There was no shortage of causes or candidates on this year’s list, with 211 individuals and 107 organizations nominated ahead of the Feb. 1 deadline.

However, the Norwegian Nobel Committee maintains absolute secrecy about whom it favors for arguably the world’s most prestigious prize.

A national library employee shows a gold Nobel Prize medal on April 17, 2015. (Fernando Vergara/AP Photo)

The award comes with a 10-milion krona ($1.1 million) cash prize and a gold medal to be handed out at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death. This year’s ceremony will be scaled down due to the pandemic.

On Monday, the Nobel Committee awarded the prize for physiology and medicine for discovering the liver-ravaging hepatitis C virus. Tuesday’s prize for physics honored breakthroughs in understanding the mysteries of cosmic black holes, and the chemistry prize on Wednesday went to scientists behind a powerful gene-editing tool. The literature prize was awarded to American poet Louise Glück on Thursday for her “candid and uncompromising” work.

Still to come next week is the prize for outstanding work in the field of economics.