The head of the World Food Program (WFP) warned Sunday that next year is going to be worse than this year unless $15 billion is handed over to prevent “famines of biblical proportions.”
The cash injection will be used to top up the elite Rome-based agency’s annual budget of $8 billion, of which the U.S. is already the largest contributor with $3.4 billion annually.
David Beasley said in an interview with the Associated Press he wants to tell anyone who will listen he has “a message to the world that it’s getting worse out there … (and) that our hardest work is yet to come.”
Beasley recalled his warning to the U.N. Security Council in April that as the world was dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, it was also “on the brink of a hunger pandemic” that could lead to “multiple famines of biblical proportions” within a few months if immediate action wasn’t taken.
“We were able to avert it in 2020 … because the world leaders responded with money, stimulus packages, deferral of debt,” he said.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) its annual Peace Prize for 2020 on Friday, overlooking a history of corruption, mismanagement, and sexual assault among its ranks. https://t.co/eeH0T87XxU
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) October 9, 2020
Beasley said WFP needs $15 billion next year — $5 billion just to avert famine and $10 billion to carry out the agency’s global programs including for malnourished children and school lunches which are often the only meal youngsters get.
“If I could get that coupled with our normal money, then we avert famine around the world” and minimize destabilization as well as migration, he said.
According to a joint analysis by WFP and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in October, 20 countries “are likely to face potential spikes in high acute food insecurity” in the next three to six months, “and require urgent attention.”
The call for a financial increase comes 12 months after an internal survey of the U.N. subsidiary faced detailed, multiple allegations of rape and sexual harassment of its female staffers, as Breitbart News reported.
It is the second time in a little over a year the agency has been pinpointed as a home for sexual abusers as it takes food and care to the most troubled – and vulnerable – people on the planet.
Despite the repeated allegations, the agency was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2020.
AP contributed to this story
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