This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the UN agency World Food Programme (WFP) for its efforts to address hunger and promote food security. The agency has also been applauded for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas.

Last year, the WFP provided assistance to nearly 100 million people in over 80 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 (SDGs). The WFP is the UN’s primary instrument for realising this goal.

David Muldrow Beasley is currently the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme.

Here are some lesser-known facts about Beasley:

• Born on February 26, 1957, David Muldrow Beasley is an American politician and member of the Republican Party.

• Beasley served one term as the 113th Governor of South Carolina (1995-1999).

• In 2017, then US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley nominated Beasley to be the next Executive Director of WFP, one of the largest humanitarian organisations addressing hunger and promoting food security.

• UN Secretary-General António Guterres and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s José Graziano da Silva appointed Beasley to the post in March 2017, stating the former governor brought “extensive experience with key governmental and business leaders and stakeholders around the world, with very strong resource mobilisation skills.”

• Beasley had been among 23 applications or nominations for the position.

• In his capacity as WFP’s Executive Director, he serves at the level of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and is a member of the organization’s Senior Management Group (SMG) under the leadership of Secretary-General António Guterres.

• Since 2019, Beasley has been a member of the World Economic Forum High-Level Group on Humanitarian Investing, co-chaired by Børge Brende, Kristalina Georgieva and Peter Maurer.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last week, will have to raise $6.8bn over the next half year in order to avert famine amid the COVID-19 crisis, the agency said.

The Rome-based agency said it had so far raised $1.6 billion.

“We’ve got a lot more money to raise to make certain we avert famine,” David Beasley, executive director of the WFP, said, noting that 7 million people had died from hunger this year.

Notably, the World Food Programme won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to combat food insecurity and hunger worldwide.