World Food Programme, the UN humanitarian organisation won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. World Food Programme, WFP was established in 1962 under the administration of President John F. Kennedy[USA] at the United Nations.
The Second World War was the most devastating conflict of the 20th century. After the war, the world faced large-scale hunger and privation. Having experienced the whole thing personally, General Dwight D.Eisenhower in 1948 was deeply moved and gave a stirring speech to the UN General Assembly.
Pathetic situation of children
Almost universally, in many countries, the children of today are hungry. Over at least half of the year. They are moving in groups, up and down the streets, in search of a garbage bin or heap in which they find any kind of remnants that will keep them alive.
So how can we expect children, who are lowered to the level of animals for their existence struggling each day to find some waste to keep them alive, would develop the ideas and the ideals of peace. This was the question raised by General Eisenhover.
Fight against hunger
In 1960, he proposed a workable scheme to provide food for the needy which resulted in WFP. It started its work in Sep, 1962, when a deadly earthquake hit Northern Iran, claiming the lives of more than 12,000 people.
It continued its work for the next two decades – the famines in Northern Africa in the 1970s to the famine in Ethiopia in 1984 and in the late 1980s the conflict in Southern Sudan.
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Now the UN World Food Programme has become the World’s largest humanitarian agency, rendering help to almost 100 million people in more than 80 countries.
No peace without food | UN World Food Programme
Though it is facing criticism that it is encouraging corruption among local politicians and officials, it is moving forward with Rome as the headquarters with 5600 trucks, 30 ships and almost 100 aircrafts engaged in supplying food.
In the words of the World Food Programme’s executive director, David Beasley “Every one of the 690 million hung people in the world has the right to live peacefully on this earth without hunger. But if there is hunger we will never have peace”.
