As the World Food Programme is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Abdulaziz Abdulmomin speaks to Susana from South Sudan

On 10 December 2020, the World Food Programme will receive the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize medal for 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.

App allows users to donate meals via their mobile phones

On 1 December, the World Food Programme (WFP)’s fundraising app, ShareTheMeal , was recognized by both Google and Apple as one of the best apps of 2020, winning Google’s “Best apps of 2020” in the category “App for Good” and Apple’s “Best of 2020” in the category “Trend of the Year: Making a Difference”.

Four voices from the World Food Programme’s Common Services on overcoming the challenges of keeping the humanitarian community up and running when the pandemic kicked off

COVID-19 has impacted transport systems like never before. The global connectedness we’ve come to rely on to move people and goods around the world ground to a halt as governments raced to stop its spread.

WFP stepped up to help. With thousands of tons of health and humanitarian cargo and over 25,000 passengers now transported, below four WFP staff recall how they dealt with the onset of the coronavirus crisis.

World Food Programme and Unicef collaborate to assist vulnerable communities

By Alessandro Valori

“Each day, I share a meal with my students to foster a sense of community, and seeing them smile makes me very happy,” says Paul Jorge, the Director of the school of Batep’a, in São Tomé and Príncipe, Africa’s second smallest country — an island nation inhabited by just over 215,000 people.

“I tell them how the food arrived on their plates, and how the kitchen helpers have prepared their meal with the best ingredients available. Like education, nutrition is a social process. It’s development. It’s our life.”

The islands of São Tomé and Príncipe sit in the Gulf of Guinea off the continent’s western coast and are as prone to climate shocks and the ravages of COVID-19 as countries on the mainland. …

Food assistance and partnership help people overcome the most testing times

By Nomhle Kangootui

Memory Nchihindo, a mother of three, has been living with HIV for the past ten years.

“I was in a very dark place when I was first diagnosed and thought my life was over,” she says. “I was stressed and confused because I didn’t understand what HIV was back then. I was discriminated against, alienated and stigmatized.”

Family and friends’ “negative talk” had left Memory feeling like a failure — it drove her into a deep depression and made her want to give up on life, she tells me.

It’s a typical winter’s morning when I visit her, with a team from the World Food Programme (WFP), in the village of Sauyemwa, northern Namibia’s Zambezi region — WFP has received a generous contribution from USAID/PEPFAR Namibia to provide food and nutrition support to more than 100,000 people on antiretroviral treatment, in the eight regions of the country worst hit by years of consecutive drought and the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS. …

The World Food Programme highlights the role of nutrition for people living with HIV

Poor nutrition is a huge danger to HIV sufferers — the virus compromises nutritional status, weakening the immune system, which increases their susceptibility to opportunistic infections, such as tuberculosis.

Food insecurity is associated with increased HIV transmission risk behaviours and decreased access to HIV treatment and care.

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In 2019, around 38 million people globally had HIV — 1.7 million of them became infected with HIV within the past year.

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Every week, more than 5,000 young women between 15–24 years become infected with HIV.

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Adolescent girls and young women are increasingly infected by HIV — they make up 10 percent of the total HIV-positive population, but represent 25 percent of new HIV infections. …

World Food Programme and partners work together to offer medical support and raise awareness about HIV and AIDS

By Nutrition & HIV team, WFP Mozambique

Three times a week Adelaide Macamo, a community outreach worker for the World Food Programme (WFP), puts on her bright yellow vest, her backpack and the facemask and heads off to the community of Inchope, in Gondola district, along the Beira transport corridor, Mozambique. Her aim is to raise awareness about free services at the roadside wellness clinic, a container-like structure referred to as the ‘blue box’.

“What is important in this role is to build trust,” she says. “I need to speak to people clearly, with patience, to explain the importance of sexual and reproductive health, the benefits of testing for HIV and what services we provide at the clinic to help them decide to come and visit us”. …

Lake Chad has become one of the world’s most complex humanitarian crises; its shores are washed by the violence of extremist groups and unpredictable climate leaving millions of families in poverty and in constant search for a safe place, where they can find food.

Story by María Gallar Sánchez, originally published in El País, in Spanish, in November 2020.

In the Lake Chad region, climate change and conflict exacerbate each other. On one hand, indiscriminate and continuous violence prevents people from adapting to new climate conditions. On the other, extreme poverty and hunger, triggered by harsh weather, push many to join the armed groups.

Hawa Kali and her extended family fled their village in fear for their lives following the deadliest jihadist attack on Chadian soil that killed 100 soldiers in March 2020.

“We left our village because we were scared that Boko Haram would raid it and kill us. We are almost forty people; grandparents, children and in-laws. We walked for ten days until we reached Kaya,” she explains. “Last week, we were forced to leave Kaya too, because we had nothing to eat. …