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The head of the World Food Program says the Nobel Peace Prize has given the UN agency a spotlight and a megaphone to warn world leaders that next year will be worse than this year, and without billions of dollars “we will have famines of biblical proportions in 2021 “.
David Beasley said in an interview with the Associated Press that the Norwegian Nobel Committee was examining the work the agency does every day in conflicts, disasters and refugee camps, often risking the lives of staff to feed millions of people. hungry people – but also to send “a message to the world that is getting worse out there … (and) that our hardest work is yet to come”.
“It was so timely because we struggled to get past the chorus,” Beasley said of last month’s award, indicating the news is dominated by the US election and the Covid-19 pandemic and the difficulty of drawing global attention to the ” farce we are facing all over the world. “
“So this was truly a gift from above,” said Beasley, recalling the surprise and delight of WFP’s 20,000 staff members around the world and his own shock at being interrupted during a meeting in Niger in the region. African Sahel with the news.
Beasley recalled his warning to the UN Security Council in April that while the world was facing the coronavirus pandemic, it was also “on the brink of a hunger pandemic” that could have led to “multiple famines of biblical proportions” within a few months if immediate action has not been taken.
“We were able to avoid it in 2020 … because world leaders responded with money, stimulus packages, debt deferral,” he said.
Now, Beasley said, Covid-19 is on the rise again, economies continue to deteriorate, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, and there’s another wave of lockdowns and arrests.
But he said the money that was available in 2020 will not be available in 2021, so he used the Nobel Prize to meet leaders virtually and in person, speak to parliaments and deliver speeches to raise awareness of those in power about “this tragedy that we are. facing: crises that will be truly extraordinary in the next, who knows, 12 to 18 months.
“Everyone now wants to meet the Nobel Peace Prize winner,” Beasley said, explaining that he now has 45 minutes instead of 15 minutes with the leaders and is able to go deep and explain how bad things are going to go the year. neighbor and how leaders will have to prioritize programs. “And the response has been really good,” he said.
“I’m telling them you won’t have enough money to fund all the projects you historically fund,” he said.
“These are important things,” Beasley said, but compared the impending crisis to the Titanic by saying “right now, we really have to focus on icebergs, and icebergs are famine, hunger, destabilization and migration.”
Beasley said WFP needs $ 15 billion next year – $ 5 billion just to avoid famine and $ 10 billion to run the agency’s global programs, including malnourished children and the school canteens that are often the only meal young people get.
“If I could combine it with our regular money, then we would avoid famine in the world” and minimize destabilization and migration. He said.
In addition to raising extra funds from governments, Beasley said, his other “big hope” is that the billionaires who made billions during the Covid-19 pandemic will only escalate once. He plans to start spreading this message probably in December or January.
In April, Beasley said 135 million people faced “levels of hunger crisis or worse”. A WFP analysis then showed that Covid-19 could push another 130 million people “to the brink of hunger by the end of 2020”.
He said in Wednesday’s virtual interview from Rome, where WFP is based, that while famine has been averted this year, the number of people facing levels of hunger crisis is increasing to 270 million.
“There are about three dozen countries that could go into famine if we don’t have the money we need,” Beasley said.
According to a joint analysis by WFP and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in October, 20 countries “risk facing potential spikes of acute food insecurity” in the next three to six months “and require attention. urgent”.
Of these, Yemen, South Sudan, northeastern Nigeria, and Burkina Faso have some areas that “have reached critical hunger after years of conflict or other shocks,” UN agencies said, and any further deterioration in the coming. months “could lead to a risk of famine.”
Other countries that require “urgent attention” are Afghanistan, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Lebanon, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somali, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, they said.
Beasley said a Covid-19 vaccine “will create a bit of optimism that will hopefully help blow up economies around the world, especially Western economies. But the WFP executive director said there has already been $ 17 billion in economic stimulus this year “and we won’t have it globally.”
“We are very, very, very worried” that with deferred debt payments for low- and middle-income countries resuming in January, new lockdowns and choppy economic impact, “2021 will be a very bad year,” he said said Beasley.
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