World Food Programme lauded for efforts in combating hunger

The UN’s World Food Programme has won the Nobel Peace Prize, in a strong endorsement of multilateralism after US president Donald Trump questioned the merits of several international organisations.
“Multilateralism seems to have a lack of respect these days,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, head of the Norwegian committee, who said the discrediting of international institutions was “part of populism, it has a nationalistic flavour”.
The UN’s largest agency was praised for its efforts in combating hunger, and stopping its use in war and conflict. Ms Reiss-Andersen said it was “a modern version of the peace congresses” that the prize was intended to promote.
The choice of the WFP is the latest in a series of low-key peace awards after the prize was controversially given to the newly elected Barack Obama in 2009 and to the EU in 2012.
Favourites for the prize had included the World Health Organization, shunned by Mr Trump this year in the middle of the coronavirus crisis, as well as journalist organisations and figures fighting climate change, such as Greta Thunberg.