Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today was due to be in Oslo this week to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the organisation he leads, the World Food Programme.

Instead, the formalities will be conducted online.

A disappointment to David Beasley, no doubt, but perhaps less of a distraction from his main

and mammoth task, ensuring that supplies of food continue to reach the well over 100 million

people across the world who are currently kept alive by emergency supplies from his agency.

2020 has been a bad year for world hunger.

Conflict continues to rage in Yemen and Syria.

A host of other poor countries are subject to civil strife and societal breakdown.

On top of that, COVID-19 has battered the world economy,

plunged millions more into extreme poverty and threatened

global logistics chains. The WFP talks of the potential for famines of biblical proportions in

2021, unless the international community raises its financial contributions to those agencies on the front line in the

fight against hunger. Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is doubtless a good opportunity to

publicize the scale of the challenge. But is there any sign the world is really listening?

Well, David Beasley joins me now from Washington, D.C. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you, Steve.

Well, let me ask you what it means to you and your staff right around the world to be recognized in this way.

Well, I think the Nobel Peace Prize Committee was sending very two strong messages. Number one, thank you, World Food Program, for your your women and men are 20,000 people that

put their lives out on the line every single day putting their lives at risk in war zone

conflict areas natural disasters doing everything they can to make this a safer world

and number two I think it was a message a prophetic message saying to the world that their

hardest work is yet to come.

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