The shipment consists of 10,000 tons of grain worth some 3.5 million dollars.Continue reading
An agreement has been signed to relocate the global financial center of the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) to Budapest, significantly increasing Hungary’s role in the fight against hunger, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced in Rome on Tuesday.
According to the ministry’s statement, after a meeting with World Food Progamme CEO David Beasley, the Foreign Minister said that after months of negotiations, the agreement had been signed and will be submitted to parliament for ratification next week. Péter Szijjártó added that the agreement will allow the center to start operating in the spring, with 80 people working there and 70 percent of the financial flow related to the organization’s global activities being handled from Budapest.
The Hungarian state, in addition to setting up the center, will also cover the operating costs for fifteen years, so that the World Food Programme can use the money to feed people in difficult situations, significantly increasing Hungary’s contribution to the success of the fight against global hunger, the Foreign Minister emphasized.
“The World Food Programme is the world’s largest multilateral food aid organization, which has played a huge role in helping hungry people in extremely difficult situations in many parts of the world, thereby helping them stay in their homes, avoid setting off on new journeys, and prevent new waves of migration,” he pointed out.
Szijjártó underlined that
several United Nations agencies are already present in Hungary with regional or global headquarters, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Office on Counter-Terrorism, and the World Health Organization, which will now be complemented by the World Food Programme.
Featured photo via Facebook/Péter Szijjártó