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	World Food Programme awarded The Nobel Peace Prize 2020 by Norwegian Nobel Committee, agencies   The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2020 to the World Food Programme (WFP) 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.   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 world is in danger of experiencing a hunger crisis of inconceivable proportions if the World Food Programme and other food assistance organisations do not receive the financial support they have requested.   The link between hunger and armed conflict is a vicious circle: war and conflict can cause food insecurity and hunger, just as hunger and food insecurity can cause latent conflicts to flare up and trigger the use of violence. We will never achieve the goal of zero hunger unless we also put an end to war and armed conflict.   The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to emphasise that providing assistance to increase food security not only prevents hunger, but can also help to improve prospects for stability and peace. The World Food Programme has taken the lead in combining humanitarian work with peace efforts through pioneering projects in South America, Africa and Asia.   The World Food Programme was an active participant in the diplomatic process that culminated in May 2018 in the UN Security Council’s unanimous adoption of Resolution 2417, which for the first time explicitly addressed the link between conflict and hunger.   The Security Council also underscored UN Member States’ obligation to help ensure that food assistance reaches those in need, and condemned the use of starvation as a method of warfare.   With this year’s award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to turn the eyes of the world towards the millions of people who suffer from or face the threat of hunger.   The World Food Programme plays a key role in multilateral cooperation on making food security an instrument of peace, and has made a strong contribution towards mobilising UN Member States to combat the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.   The organisation contributes daily to advancing the fraternity of nations referred to in Alfred Nobel’s will. As the UN’s largest specialised agency, the World Food Programme is a modern version of the peace congresses that the Nobel Peace Prize is intended to promote.   The work of the World Food Programme to the benefit of humankind is an endeavour that all the nations of the world should be able to endorse and support.   http://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2020/press-release/ http://www.wfp.org/   Nobel Peace Prize award spotlights conflict, climate change and coronavirus as drivers of a deepening global hunger crisis. (WFP)   “Every one of the over 800 million hungry people in the world today has the right to live peacefully and without hunger,” said WFP’s Executive Director David Beasley, in a statement.   “Today, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has turned the global spotlight on them and on the devastating consequences of conflict.”   “Climate shocks and economic pressures have further compounded their plight. And now, a global pandemic with its brutal impact on economies and communities, is pushing millions more to the brink of starvation.”   Mr. Beasley paid tribute to WFP staff. “They’re out there in the most difficult, complex places in the world, whether there’s war, conflict, climate extremes, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “They’re out there, and they deserve this award.”   WFP, the world’s biggest humanitarian organization, warned earlier this year that COVID-19 could result in a “hunger pandemic” as coronavirus wreaked havoc with supply chains, disrupting the movements of critical food assistance, personnel and critical equipment.   The Rome-based UN agency said that acute hunger in the 88 countries in which it operates could reach 270 million people by the end of the year — an 82 percent increase on 2019.   In spite of funding shortages, the organization has persevered, working to fend off famine in hunger hotspots such as Yemen, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo — places beset by the intersecting threats of conflict, climate change and now coronavirus.   Last year, WFP reached a record 97 million people with food assistance. In June it issued a call for US$4.9 billion to reach up to 138 million people.   Bearing witness to how hunger and conflict feed each other in dozens of countries, WFP has always been an advocate for the critical role peace has in ending hunger, and for the use of food as a tool for peace.   In 2018, the global community explicitly recognized the formal link between hunger and conflict for the first time through UN Security Council Resolution 2417.   Beasley added: “The Nobel Peace Prize should inspire all of us to work even harder, to continue to save lives, change lives and reach that Zero Hunger goal.”   June 2021   WFP Global Operational Response Plan: June 2021   The driving focus of the WFP’s Global Operational Response Plan is to provide government partners, policymakers, humanitarian counterparts, and concerned citizens with an update on evolving needs and WFP’s response priorities.   The world is no longer moving towards Zero Hunger. Progress has stalled, reversed, and today, up to 270.5 million people are estimated to be acutely food insecure or at high risk in 2021, driven by conflict, economic shocks, natural disasters, and the socio-economic fallout from COVID-19.   Urgent action and immediate support are needed to address and prevent famine for millions of people and avert catastrophic outcomes, including wide-scale food assistance cuts for refugees and other vulnerable people.   The World Food Programme (WFP) is taking a leadership role, working with partners globally and nationally to meet people’s emergency food and nutrition needs and reduce the structural vulnerabilities that underpin them – by strengthening the capacity of individuals, communities, and governments, improving livelihoods, building resilience and reinforcing national social protection systems.   The June update provides the latest information, figures, and a snapshot of how WFP is implementing the Global Operational Response Plan, by:   Warning of the drivers and multiplying risks that have resulted in surging food insecurity and deepening hunger, with 41 million people at risk of falling into famine in 43 countries, and 584,000 people likely to face famine-like conditions in Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen in 2021.   Setting out how WFP is responding through humanitarian action, development assistance and technical support to national governments – working to scale up lifesaving food and nutrition assistance, enhance prevention, and strengthen global and national partnerships.   Identifying WFP’s Operations of Highest Concern, where the scale and severity of food and nutrition insecurity, the scale of WFP’s operational requirements, and the urgency of funding gaps intersect, along with providing a detailed country-by-country overview across WFP’s operations.   Despite mounting operational requirements, the 2021 global contribution forecast covers just 55 percent of WFP’s current operational requirements of US$ 15.3 billion. For the next six months alone, WFP still requires US$ 4.5 billion to cover needs from June to November 2021.   http://www.wfp.org/news/un-report-pandemic-year-marked-spike-world-hunger http://www.wfp.org/news/wfp-says-41-million-people-now-imminent-risk-famine-without-urgent-funding-and-immediate http://www.wfp.org/publications/wfp-global-operational-response-plan-update-2-june-2021 http://www.fightfoodcrises.net/grfc-2021/en/ http://www.ipcinfo.org/   Sep. 2020   No end to world hunger without an end to conflict — WFP warns   Marking International Day of Peace today, the World Food Programme (WFP)’s Executive Director David Beasley is adamant: “There’s no two ways about it — we can’t end hunger unless we put an end to conflict.”   As the world stands on the brink of a hunger pandemic, with the impact of coronavirus threatening to almost double the number of acutely hungry people to 270 million, those living in conflict-affected areas are suffering the most.   According to the Global Report on Food Crises 2019, some 74 million people facing acute hunger live in 21 countries affected by conflict and insecurity — and so do nearly 80 percent of children who are stunted or short for their age, due to chronic malnutrition.   Areas including parts of Yemen, South Sudan, Northeast Nigeria and West Africa’s Central Sahel are of particular concern and, while collective action might have staved off famine this year, there are no guarantees that it will not return in 2021.   Now well into its fifth year of conflict, Yemen is crisscrossed by 40 different front lines — more than ever before. Coupled with the near-complete collapse of the economy and the inability of the country’s fragile health infrastructure to deal with the spread of coronavirus, this escalation in conflict is pushing the country to the brink of catastrophe.   “In 2018, we sounded the alarm about Yemen slipping into famine, and it was only thanks to decisive action from donors and humanitarian agencies that we could prevent that from happening,” Beasley says. “Two years on, any hard-won improvements we managed to achieve have been wiped out, and the country is now at a tipping point.”   In a poignant testimony of life in a war zone, 12-year-old Amina, whose family was forced to flee their native Hodeidah to seek shelter in Yemen’s capital Sanaa recently said this to a WFP team: “The war can get you in many ways. It is not only the bombings. People suffer when their homes are taken away. People die of hunger and there is not enough water.” She also added: “The thing that worries me most is that the war will continue on and on into the future. It will be my future.”   “Young Amina’s dream is that the fighting will stop, and Yemen will be peaceful again,” says Beasley. “And this is what I hear time and again as I travel to war-torn countries. People tell me how they worry about not having enough food to feed their families, but what they often ask for is peace — without that, they know they won’t be able to farm their lands, send their children to school, or build a future for their communities.”   “We need to act now to build peace and end violent conflict,” Beasley says, “this is the only way to prevent millions of women, children and men from falling into hunger.”   More than 80 percent of resources requested by UN humanitarian appeals in recent years have been for action in conflict situations.   Lack of food due to conflict is a well-established fact. But the opposite is also true. Food scarcity can fan the flames of existing social tensions, fuel grievances and even further the cause of extremist groups, triggering or exacerbating conflicts.   Worse still, despite its prohibition under international humanitarian law (the law that regulates the conduct of conflicts), the use of food as a weapon of war is still widespread.   “Food, however, can be a powerful tool to build peace,” Beasley says.   WFP’s development activities can help reduce friction that could escalate into conflict. Food Assistance for Assets programmes, in which participants receive assistance to cover their food needs as they build or rehabilitate community assets such as roads, water reserves or irrigation systems, are a case in point.   In Kyrgyzstan, where disputes over natural resources at the southern border with Tajikistan are widely recognized as a source of conflict, WFP’s engagement of communities to rehabilitate irrigation canals and pipelines in disputed territories resulted in an increase in water supplies and agricultural productivity, which in turn helped to prevent inter-community conflict over water.   In a handful of countries, decommissioned combatants are included in farming and other income-generating projects to advance their reincorporation into society and foster a stronger sense of community.   Examples of this include Colombia, the Pool region of Congo and, most recently, the conflict-ridden Bangsamoro autonomous region in the Philippines, where former combatants are being encouraged to become forest rangers and join farming activities under the joint aegis of local authorities and WFP.   “Peace and food security go hand in hand,” Beasley said. “Without political action to end wars and promote stability, and action from the ground to eradicate some of the root causes of conflict, there is no chance of achieving the goal of zero hunger.”   http://www.wfp.org/conflict-and-hunger Visit the related web page
	Strategies to address violence and conflict should place local actors at the forefront by CSPPS, Peace Direct, NGOWG   Oct. 2020   Radical Flexibility: Strategic Funding for the Age of Local Activism, a report from Peace Direct.   Violent conflict is at a 30-year high. Building peace in any country requires local leadership, broad participation, and unwavering effort. Yet, the people, communities, and organizations best equipped to prevent violence and sustain peace are not receiving the recognition, respect, or resources they need from the international community.   This is a situation that funders – including traditional government and private funders as well as new donors interested in social impact and solving big global problems - can and should change.   Doing so offers the potential of ushering in a new era of more effective, locally led peacebuilding and conflict transformation. To achieve this, a radical reevaluation of the current system of donor funding is needed, as well as meaningful investment in new approaches supporting locally led efforts.   Peacebuilding is dedicated to resolving conflict non-violently, rebuilding lives after violence and ensuring local communities have the skills and resources to make peace a reality.   This may be realized through a wide range of efforts, including directly mediating local conflicts, helping gang members and child soldiers adapt to civilian life, and empowering women in all realms, including business and politics. Despite violence prevention and resilience-building being key to any effective intervention, current funding is largely directed at reacting to, rather than preventing, conflict.   Prevention or transformation includes activities that address the potential root causes of violence, such as human rights abuses, the inequitable distribution of land and other resources, and the marginalization of communities from democratic processes.   Local organizations on the frontlines of conflict are often the actors best equipped for peacebuilding and conflict transformation. Yet, they are systematically neglected and marginalized from the international peace and security funding ecosystem.   As the Foundation Center’s – now Candid – State of Global Giving report reveals, of the $4.1 billion that US foundations gave overseas between 2011 and 2015, just 12% went directly to local organizations based in the country where programming occurred. Peacebuilding in general is already underfinanced, with private donors spending less than 1% of the almost $26 billion in global giving on peace and security writ large, including peacebuilding and conflict prevention.   Pathways for Peace states that targeting resources toward just four countries at high risk of conflict each year could save $34 billion in foreign aid budgets. In comparison, spending on responses to violent conflict through peacekeeping and humanitarian crisis response operations in 2016 was $8.2 billion and $22.1 billion, respectively.   The United Nations, along with many others, has noted that successful strategies to address violence and conflict should place local actors at the forefront.   Furthermore, research has demonstrated that in complex operating environments, supporting civil society to create their own solutions is often the most constructive path toward sustainable social change.   A 2019 report examining more than 70 external evaluations found that local peacebuilders demonstrated significant impact in preventing, reducing or stopping violence; improving relationships among citizens (i.e. horizontal relationships); and improving relationships between citizens and those who govern them (i.e. vertical relationships).   Grants are the backbone of donor support to civil society organizations, yet they are akin to using analog technology to support social change in a digital world. Grants are an outdated and ineffective tool if the funds they provide are not used with great flexibility.   Indeed, this report argues that the prevailing foreign assistance paradigm has led to three interrelated problems: 1) an antiquated and calcified global funding system; 2) inadequate funding for local actors; and 3) funding that is poorly structured for the purposes of effective action and impact. In short, the current approach constitutes a bad business model.   Lack of investment in local efforts undermines the billions of dollars spent on other types of intervention, creating competition instead of collaboration and forcing small organizations to waste valuable resources on constant fundraising based on immediate-term success. Through applied experience, prior research on donor financing, 25 qualitative interviews and online consultations with local actors from all over the world, this project highlights the funding approaches that hold the most promise in assisting local actors to prevent violence.   http://www.peacedirect.org/publications/radicalflexibility/ http://www.peacedirect.org/what-we-do/mapping-peace/ http://www.peaceinsight.org/   July 2020   Fighting COVID-19, Building Peace – What Local Peacebuilders say about COVID-19, Civic Space, Fragility and Drivers of Conflict, a report from the Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS)   Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, CSPPS has kept in close contact with the members of our network to learn about their individual circumstances, activities, challenges and accomplishments. The result is the report "Fighting COVID-19, Building Peace – a civil society perspective. What Local Peacebuilders say about COVID-19, Civic Space, Fragility and Drivers of Conflict".   The report is divided into four sections. The first explores how the pandemic has affected civil society’s capacity to operate. It covers both practical matters, like the inability to visit communities in person, as well as the issue of shrinking civic space.   The second section describes and analyses how local peacebuilders view the pandemic as occasioning violence and stimulating drivers of conflict.   The third discusses the dearth of coordination between government and civil society, as the latter remains excluded from shaping most strategies, plans and measures deployed against COVID-19.   The final section provides a short overview of the kinds of activities that CSOs have been undertaking during this period. The report concludes with reflections and recommendations to help our partners and other stakeholders of peace tackle the issues identified in the report.   http://www.cspps.org/news/persistent-impact-urgent-call-conflict-sensitive-approach-covid-19-pandemic http://cspps.org/Fighting-COVID19-Building-Peace-Report http://www.cspps.org/news   July 2020   Support Civil Society at the UN Security Council, by Kaavya Asoka for the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace & Security.   Six months into 2020, during what should be a celebratory year for women’s civil society marking the 20th anniversary of Resolution 1325 (2000), their voices are barely heard at the UN Security Council. Why?   Since 1 January 2020, the Council has held 53 formal meetings and 64 open VTCs during which 21 civil society briefers have delivered statements, 11 of whom were women. This represents a 38.9% decrease compared to 2019.   The current limitations facing the Security Council as it conducts its work virtually undoubtedly pose challenges to civil society participation. However, in the more than three months since the Council began working remotely, it has become clear that these are not merely technical challenges but a lack of political will — a deprioritization of the voices of independent civil society despite Council member’s claims of women’s critical role in ensuring peace and security.   The NGOWG has nominated 18 civil society representatives under all six presidencies to brief the Council on 12 different agenda items, pursuant to the Security Council’s commitment to invite women civil society representatives to brief during country-specific meetings under Resolution 2242 (2015).   Warnings from civil society about exclusion   On April 18, along with 30 other human rights, humanitarian, development and women’s rights organizations, we wrote to the President of the Security Council to raise concerns around the transparency of the work of the Security Council and obstacles to the effective participation of civil society due to changes to its working methods under the COVID-19 pandemic.   On May 11, we followed up with supportive Council members to continue to raise the alarm regarding what we saw as a continuing pattern of exclusion. In parallel, other civil society organizations have raised similar concerns around barriers to inclusive and meaningful engagement of civil society as well as risks of intimidation and reprisals in the context of other virtual UN meetings, including the High-Level Political Forum and the Human Rights Council.   However, despite the repeated warnings issued by dozens of organizations from around the world, the pattern of exclusion continues. This trend must be urgently reversed, lest we lose the gains made over the last four years.   In response to this downward trend, since early April, we have continued to facilitate informal briefings between women’s civil society representatives and Security Council members on Colombia, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Yemen, Mali, the Central African Republic and South Sudan. With our support, Council members have heard from 14 women with expertise on nine different countries over the course of the last two months.   However, we are concerned that these informal channels will become a replacement for civil society participation in the formal work of the Security Council. As we have repeatedly raised with Council members: women civil society representatives must not be relegated to only informal spaces, where they will not be able to share their perspectives with the full Council membership. This is counter to the Council’s own commitments as laid out in Resolution 2242 (2015).   The Security Council must live up to its own promises   Over the last 19 years, the Security Council has reinforced, acknowledged and highlighted the role of civil society over 500 times, calling for Member States and the UN to work with civil society in conflict prevention efforts, peacebuilding, provision of humanitarian assistance and peace processes and has, on multiple occasions, recognized the role of civil society, particularly women’s groups, as crucial interlocutors in conflict situations.   Since the adoption of Resolution 2242 (2015), the number and diversity of women civil society briefers at the UN Security Council has increased; from nine women in 2016 to 40 in 2019.   These briefers bring a wealth of expertise and experience to the Security Council, enriching its discussions by highlighting marginalized perspectives and raising issues that would otherwise be overlooked in favor of political considerations. The importance of these briefings, however, goes far beyond numbers.   Issues related to women, peace and security are less likely to be raised if they aren’t raised first by a civil society briefer. Briefings by civil society leaders expand the understanding of policymakers related to the role of women’s organizations in mediating and negotiating local disputes or advocating on behalf of their communities in parallel to formal peace processes.   The tendency of the international community to focus largely on high-level, formal processes is detrimental to a deeper understanding of the complexity of crisis situations and, importantly, the central role of women peacebuilders, human rights defenders and women’s civil society organizations on the frontlines providing essential services and resolving conflicts.   This means that without these briefings, the critical perspectives of individuals and communities who are directly affected by the Council’s decision-making are not being heard, nor are Council members making these decisions with a full picture of the situation on the ground.   http://www.womenpeacesecurity.org/support-civil-society-security-council/ http://giwps.georgetown.edu/women-peacebuilders-in-the-pandemic/
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