The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize to the World Food Programme (WFP) for helping the millions of people who suffer from or face the threat of hunger.
“WFP has awarded the Peace Prize its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, after revealing the names of Nobel Peace Prize on Friday around 3:00 pm at the Nobel Institute in Oslo.
According to the statement of The Nobel Prize, World Food Programme contributes daily to advancing the fraternity of nations referred to in Alfred Nobel’s will. As the UN’s largest specialized agency, WFP is a modern version of the peace congresses that intended to promote the Nobel Peace Prize.
WFP plays a key role in multilateral cooperation on making food security an instrument of peace and has made a strong contribution towards mobilizing the UN Member States to combat the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.
In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, WFP has demonstrated an impressive ability to intensify its efforts that contributed to a strong upsurge in the number of victims of hunger in the world, The Nobel Prize further said.
This year, 318 nominees were known to be under consideration, including 211 individuals and 107 organizations. However, the names on the list are kept secret for 50 years – making predictions difficult.
The four women crowned so far this year with a Nobel is more than usual, closing in on 2009’s record of five female winners.
On Thursday, American poet Louise Gluck won the literature prize, Emmanuelle Charpentier of France and Jennifer Doudna of the US shared the chemistry prize for developing a genome editing method on Wednesday, and Andrea Ghez of the US shared the physics prize with two male colleagues on Tuesday.
Besides, The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2020 was awarded jointly to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice “for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus”. They made a decisive contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis, a major global health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in people around the world. Source: https://www.daily-bangladesh.com/
