Thursday. 28.03.2024

The 2020 Nobel prize laureates are to be honoured in absentia on Thursday at ceremonies that have been scaled back due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The World Food Organization (WFP), the United Nations' food aid agency, is due to accept the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Rome.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the WFP for its "efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict."

David Beasley, the WFP executive director, is set to accept the award – a diploma and a gold medal – at the agency’s headquarters.

In Oslo, Berit Reiss-Andersen, head of the five-strong Norwegian Nobel Committee, is also due to give a statement.

Traditionally, the peace prize - one of the prizes endowed by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), the inventor of dynamite – is presented in Oslo in accordance with Nobel's will.

Later on Thursday, a televised ceremony is scheduled from Stockholm City Hall.

Live broadcast

The broadcast is to include clips of how the Nobel laureates in the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, and economics received their awards in their home countries.

No laureates have travelled to Stockholm either due to the pandemic, and just as in Oslo the banquet in their honour has been cancelled.

The Nobel awards are announced in October. The award ceremonies are usually held in Stockholm and Oslo on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death.

Nobel laureates to be honoured at ceremonies adjusted for pandemic