The World Food Program (WFP) Thursday accepted its Nobel Peace Prize for the agency’s efforts to fight world-wide hunger during a small ceremony at the U.N. agency’s headquarters in Rome.
The prize is usually given out in grand, televised ceremony in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, but the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the ceremony to a partially remote affair, with Nobel Committee members in Norway, and WFP Executive Director David Beasley in Rome.
Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairwoman Berit Reis-Anderson opened the ceremony, via web stream, and invited Beasley to come to Oslo, hopefully next year, to deliver the traditional Nobel lecture on behalf of the WFP.
In Rome, Beasley was presented with the Nobel Medal and Diploma on behalf of the committee by co-President of the International Peace Bureau, Lisa Pelletti Clark.  
Beasley thanked the committee for acknowledging the work of the WFP to combat hunger, end conflict, and create stability and peace.  
“We believe food is the pathway to peace,” he said, noting the prize is more than a thank you, it is a call to action “because of so many wars, climate change, the widespread use of food as a political and military weapon and a global pandemic that makes all of that exponentially worse.”
There are 12 Nobel laureates this year and all but the Peace Prize had been awarded over the past days at low-key ceremonies across Europe and the United States. The WFP – like all Nobel winners – will also receive a cash prize of about $1.18 million.
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