WFP chief uses Nobel speech as call for action to avert ‘hunger pandemic’

With millions in Afghanistan facing starvation as winter arrives, the World Food Programme (WFP) on Thursday urged countries to put politics aside and step up support to avert a potential catastrophe. 

The need for the World Food Programme, the recipient of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, to exist is starker than ever. From conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to flooding in South Sudan, and the civil war in Yemen, man-made and natural disasters are leaving tens of millions of people unsure if they will have enough food for themselves and their families to survive on.

The ongoing crisis in Haiti is having a “massive” and “devastating” impact, with over half the population acutely food insecure and more than one million staring at emergency levels of hunger, a senior UN World Food Programme (WFP) official said on Thursday.