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Faces and places: 2020 story highlights from WFP

What a year it's been—below, a selection of our favourite stories to usher in 2021
, Mert Er

 

Colombia: WFP and World Vision provide 5,000 food baskets to Colombians and migrants in Soacha, near Bogotá. Photo: WFP/Mathias Roed
Colombia: WFP and World Vision provide 5,000 food baskets to Colombians and migrants in Soacha, near Bogotá. Click here to read more. Photo: WFP/Mathias Roed

In the year the coronavirus pandemic deepened the global hunger crisis—the World Food Programme (WFP) was at hand, providing life-saving assistance, working to save and change lives, against all odds. Below is a selection of stories from our staff around the world.

Conflict and hunger

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Claude Jibidar talking to Central African Republic refugees in the village of Mobay Mbongo, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo: WFP/Jacques David

An interview with WFP Chad country director Claude Jibidar shows how WFP builds fragile nations’ resilience and helps them graduate out of food insecurity to save and change lives. Read more 

Letters from Yemen 

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Elaf's family fled conflict in Hodeidah and are now being assisted in Aden. Photo: WFP/Saleh Bin Hayyen

Two girls describe how conflict turned their lives upside down. "I dream that the war ends and that Yemen is peaceful again," says Amina. Read more.

Famine watch

WFP assistance
A family in Syria pick up their monthly food allowance. Photo: WFP/Ali Habib

A joint report by the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations alerts the world to the risk of famine. Read more

Let peace sprout

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Vegetable gardens bring hope to Africa's conflict and climate change-afflicted Central Sahel region. Photo: WFP/Esther Ouoba

A community resilience project helps people in Central Sahel fight against  the impacts of conflict and hunger through rehabilitation of barren land. Read more

The people's prize 

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WFP staff attend to a participant in a ofod and cash assistance scheme in Kano, Nigeria. Photo: WFP/Damilola Onafuwa

WFP Executive Director David Beasley pays tribute to WFP staff as the organization is awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize: “They’re out there in the most difficult, complex places in the world, whether there’s war, conflict, climate extremes, it doesn’t matter. They’re out there, and they deserve this award.” Read more

Things you didn't know

Bangladesh: Cash grants allotted before floods hit allow families to prepare. Photo: WFP/Sayed Asif Mahmud

A photo story packed with impressive facts: did you know that in 2019 WFP delivered 4.2 million metric tons of food, the equivalent weight of 840,000 Asian elephants? Read more 

Mitigating the impacts of COVID-19

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The ride back after a food distribution point in the Department of Oruro. Photo: WFP/Morelia Eróstegui

How WFP helped when COVID-19 made life for the Uru-Murato community—whose ancestral lake dried up in 2015—even more difficult. Read more

Meanwhile, in Mozambique...

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Families line up at the port town of Pemba for a passage south. Photo: WFP/Sean Rajman

In October WFP calls for funds as conflict prompts an exodus in Cabo Delgado, straining a country ravaged by two cyclones. Read more  

Rainbows in COVID times

Supermarket swipe: Rubi Ferreira shows off her e-card— simple tasks such as shopping can be a huge challenge for trans people. Photo: WFP/Hetze Tosta
Supermarket swipe: Rubi Ferreira shows off her e-card— simple tasks such as shopping can be a huge challenge for trans people. Photo: WFP/Hetze Tosta

Cash assistance from WFP empowers the stigmatized LGBT+ community in Honduras which has been pushed into poverty by coronavirus-related restrictions. Read more.

 

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