Shannon Maree Torrens
I was a young twenty-something when I worked with the Australian delegation to the World Food Programme (WFP) at the organisation’s headquarters in Rome, Italy. I sat in meetings listening as countries discussed the needs of the most vulnerable in the world, debated responses to emergency situations and shared statistics about hunger that were difficult to comprehend given the overabundance of food on this planet and the excessive food waste that exists.
That the WFP has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year is well deserved. Whilst a number of countries and leaders are moving away from global initiatives and agreements, the WFP’s essential work feeding the increasing number of individuals suffering from hunger worldwide is vital to their survival and to global peace and security.
In being awarded the Peace Prize, WFP was praised by the Nobel Committee ‘for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict’. In conflict an enemy’s food supply or delivery of food may be targeted, supply chains can be disrupted, or people may be forcibly displaced from their resources, resulting in an inability to feed themselves and their families. For example the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan has said of the conflict that, ‘both Government and opposition forces have deliberately used the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare … sometimes as an instrument to punish non-aligning communities’.
At the WFP, I came to understand the devastation that many people live through, sometimes throughout their entire lives due to hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition as a result of a range of seemingly intractable issues: food shortages, poor infrastructure, poverty, government corruption, climate change and conflict. Today over 820 million people, one in every nine people, suffer from hunger.
The WFP is very much the quiet achiever of the UN world. The blue WFP emblem is common in conflict, post-conflict and developing countries with the organisation operating alongside other UN organisations, NGOs and government assistance projects in countries in need. WFP provides food, nutrition and other emergency supplies to those who are food insecure or requiring nutrition. During an emergency the organisation is there on the ground when states are still deciding whether to get involved in their own individual capacity.
WFP’s work during the outbreak of COVID-19 has been inspiring with the organisation continuing to provide humanitarian and health assistance when most of the world has been at a standstill. Aside from the pandemic, which is its own crisis, there are currently serious food insecurity issues in Yemen, Congo, Nigeria, S. Sudan and Burkina Faso, the complexity and severity of which illustrates how important it is to have international cooperation on issues of hunger assistance.
At the WFP I saw countries working together in an attempt to provide some relief to the issue of hunger and I began to understand how international cooperation can work effectively in practice. Recent years have seen a rise in governments and world leaders who espouse beliefs about national interests trumping the international and seek to disengage from international cooperation and international agreements.
We have seen the Trump government pull out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and actively seek to derail International Criminal Court investigations. The UK has withdrawn from the European Union and there is increasing hostility towards asylum seekers, refugees and migrants across Europe. There is a rise in those opposing the United Nations, who see it as ineffective and irrelevant in today’s world compared to when it was established 75 years ago.
Many argue against the benefits of international collaboration despite this being an increasingly interconnected world. They fail to see that any ineffectiveness by the UN and the inefficiency of international cooperation more generally is normally due to states obstructing the collaborative process.
International cooperation is not just relevant in today’s world, it is increasingly relevant and important for countries to work together in response to global issues. Unilateral action by individual states is not as effective. If the WFP did not provide assistance to the 97 million starving people in 88 countries in the world as it did in 2019, this gap would not be filled by states themselves. It is only through international cooperation that this assistance becomes a reality. The provision of food and nutrition is also more effective when undertaken as part of a global effort, ensuring that those most at risk receive the necessary help.
After Rome, when I went on to work in post conflict and developing countries and with different UN organisations and international courts, I saw the WFP, working alongside others, providing food and emergency assistance which was part of the broader needs of the country, whether that be peace, justice, development or human rights implementation. It is difficult to achieve any of those things if people are starving.
I have seen people receive food and other assistance from the WFP in multiple countries who would otherwise not receive a meal. I have seen children so thin and malnourished that they were considerably undersized and underweight for their age and close to death. I have seen other children unable to learn and progress in life due to chronic malnutrition. It is difficult to witness a starving person receive food aid and to not think the organisation does an incredible job at making our world a better place.
We fail as an international community when we do not work together effectively with the interests of the collective in mind but rather prioritise individual interests above all else, as is increasingly the case. International cooperation is not an outdated or ineffective aspiration but a real benefit in addressing key issues affecting the world. When governments act unilaterally, they are not able to fully address the complex, political and long-standing drivers behind issues such as hunger worldwide. That the WFP was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize reaffirms the importance of international cooperation which should be further embraced alongside recognising the benefit of concerted global effort.
Shannon Maree Torrens is an international and human rights lawyer from Sydney. She has worked at the UN international criminal courts and tribunals. She holds a PhD in international criminal law from the University of Sydney.
