American President Donald Trump has been denied this years Nobel Prize for Peace.

Trump had earlier boasted about his shocking nomination by Norwegian far-right MP, named Christian Tybring-Gjedde, as a badge of acceptance and approval of his handling of the Coronavirus Pandemic and for normalising relations between Isreal and the United Arab Emirates.

However, the The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided instead to award the Prize to the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP). This the organisation said was for the UN’s 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.

The World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organisation addressing hunger and promoting food security. In 2019, the WFP provided assistance to close to 100 million people in 88 countries who are victims of acute food insecurity and hunger. In 2015, eradicating hunger was adopted as one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The WFP is the UN’s primary instrument for realising this goal. In recent years, the situation has taken a negative turn. In 2019, 135 million people suffered from acute hunger, the highest number in many years. Most of the increase was caused by war and armed conflict.

The coronavirus pandemic has contributed to a strong upsurge in the number of victims of hunger in the world. In countries such as Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, South Sudan and Burkina Faso, the combination of violent conflict and the pandemic has led to a dramatic rise in the number of people living on the brink of starvation. In the face of the pandemic, the World Food Programme has demonstrated an impressive ability to intensify its efforts. As the organisation itself has stated, “Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos.”

The Nobel Prizes most years are presented to recipients in Stockholm and Oslo in December. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the committees are changing their approaches. Some of the events in Stockholm will be cancelled in favour of a digital ceremony for the Nobelists, and medals and diplomas are to be distributed to the recipients’ embassies and handed over in their home countries. Recipients may be invited to the award ceremony for 2021, if possible.