How is the World Food Program engaged in fighting hunger?
Sheeran: The World Food Program feeds about half of the hungry who receive food assistance, usually in the most difficult and remote corners of the Earth. That is our mission. Over many decades, we have built up a huge logistical capacity that is so effective it has become the U.N.’s primary humanitarian arm for logistics — not only for food but also for medicines, tents, blankets, whatever people need in emergency situations. But even with a nearly $3 billion annual budget and thousands of ships, planes, and vehicles delivering food every day, we’re only reaching about 10 percent of the hungry in the world. And so we still lose 25,000 people a day to hunger-related causes — the number one public health problem in the world, killing more people than TB [tuberculosis], malaria, and AIDS combined. We simply must ramp up all that we are doing to get ahead of the hunger curve. Q: What do you see as WFP’s greatest challenges? Sheeran: A number of things are happening. We have what we call
