Kathmandu. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the World Food Programme (WFP) with the Nobel Peace Prize, 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 Chair of the committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, commenting on the food crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic, mentioned that in “the face of the pandemic, the World Food Programme has demonstrated an impressive ability to intensify it efforts.” She further commended the work done by WFP noting that, “As the organization itself has stated: until the day we have a vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos.”

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to  Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice  “for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus”, on Monday. On Tuesday, Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez were jointly honored with the Nobel Prize in Physics. Similarly, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was jointly awarded to Emmanuelle M. Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna “for the development of a method for genome editing,” termed CRISPR,” on Wednesday. The American poet Louise Gluck received the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal,” on Thursday.

The announcement for the final category, of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, will be made on Monday in Sweden.