The Nobel Peace Prize 2020 was awarded to 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."
Announcement of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize to the World Food Programme, presented by Berit Reiss-Andersen, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, on 9 October 2020.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2020 to the World Food Programme (WFP). The World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization 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 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.
On 27 November 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, giving the largest share of his fortune to a series of prizes, the Nobel Prizes. As described in Nobel’s will, one part was dedicated to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”. Learn more about the Nobel Peace Prize from 1901 to 2020.
Number of Nobel Peace Prizes
101 Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded since 1901. It was not awarded on 19 occasions: in 1914-1916, 1918, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1939-1943, 1948, 1955-1956, 1966-1967 and 1972.
Shared and unshared Nobel Peace Prizes
69 Peace Prizes have been given to one Laureate only.
30 Peace Prizes have been shared by two Laureates.
2 Peace Prizes have been shared between three persons. The 1994 Nobel Peace Prize to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, and the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman.
Number of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to 135 Laureates* – to 107 individuals and 28 organizations. Since Comité International de la Croix Rouge (International Committee of the Red Cross) was awarded three times and Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was awarded twice there are 107 individuals and 25 organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The youngest Nobel Peace Prize Laureate is Malala Yousafzai, who was 17 years old when awarded the 2014 Peace Prize.
The oldest Nobel Peace Prize Laureate to date is Joseph Rotblat, who was 87 years old when he was awarded the Prize in 1995.
Female Nobel Peace Prize Laureates
Of the 107 individuals awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 17 are women. The first time a Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a woman was in 1905, to Bertha von Suttner.
1905 – Bertha von Suttner
1931 – Jane Addams
1946 – Emily Greene Balch
1976 – Betty Williams
1976 – Mairead Corrigan
1979 – Mother Teresa
1982 – Alva Myrdal
1991 – Aung San Suu Kyi
1992 – Rigoberta Menchú Tum
1997 – Jody Williams
2003 – Shirin Ebadi
2004 – Wangari Maathai
2011 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
2011 – Leymah Gbowee
2011 – Tawakkol Karman
2014 – Malala Yousafzai
2018 – Nadia Murad
The work of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been honoured the most – three times – by a Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, the founder of the ICRC, Henry Dunant, was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.
Jane Addams was nominated 91 times between 1916 and 1931, when she was finally awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho, awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, is the only person who has declined the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureates under arrest at the time of the award
German pacifist and journalist Carl von Ossietzky
Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi
Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo
Mahatma Gandhi, one of the strongest symbols of non-violence in the 20th century, was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and, finally, shortly before he was assassinated in January 1948. Although Gandhi was not awarded the Prize (a posthumous award is not allowed by the statutes), the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to make no award that year on the grounds that “there was no suitable living candidate”.
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