*EPF413 07/17/2003
Bertini Awarded World Food Prize
(American honored for pioneering humanitarian aid work) (610)

By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- U.N. Undersecretary General Catherine Bertini, the highest ranking American in the U.N. system, has been awarded the 2003 World Food Prize for her ten-year leadership of the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), prize officials announced July 16.

"Ms. Bertini has been selected as the 2003 World Food Prize laureate for defeating large-scale famine in our time," said Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation, at the opening session of the World Congress of Food Science and Technology in Chicago.

"In the 10 years she led the agency as its executive director, Ms. Bertini transformed the World Food Program from primarily a development assistance organization into the largest and most responsive humanitarian relief organization in the world, delivering life-sustaining food aid to over 700 million people in more than 100 countries during her term," Quinn said.

As a result of her leadership, he said, "for the first time in history, the international community attained the capacity to confront and defeat large-scale famine anywhere around the globe."

The $250,000 World Food Prize was created in 1986 by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug. It is often referred to as the "Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture" and is the foremost international award recognizing breakthrough achievements that increase the quality, quantity and availability of food in the world. It is endowed by John Ruan, an Iowa philanthropist.

The prize will be presented to Bertini on October 16, World Food Day.

The largest humanitarian agency in the world, the World Food Program is funded entirely with voluntary contributions and receives 90 percent of its support from nine countries plus the European Community. The United States provides more than 60 percent of WFP's assistance.

During her tenure at WFP from 1992 to 2002, Bertini developed key strategies that changed the way the agency carries out its mission. WFP has become known for its exceptional ability to get aid to the hungry by whatever means necessary, be it repairing transportation infrastructure in the Beria Corridor in southern Africa or carrying out the largest humanitarian airdrop in history in Sudan. During her tenure the WFP was able to save 3.3 million North Korean children from severe malnutrition through a WFP feeding program.

A forceful advocate for women's rights, Bertini changed WFP delivery mechanisms to channel food aid through women to ensure widespread food distribution in emergency situations. Now more than 60 percent of all WFP food assistance is delivered through women.

In 2001 Bertini and her courageous WFP staff successfully resisted an edict of the then-ruling Taliban in Afghanistan to close WFP bakeries she had established and which were being run by Afghan women.

In 2002 WFP joined in implementing a U.S.-sponsored global school feeding program which helped improve the health, livelihood and education of 16 million children in 64 countries.

Bertini graduated from the State University of New York in Albany and completed a fellowship at Harvard University's John F. Kenney Institute of Politics. Prior to joining WFP Bertini served in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and in 1989 was appointed Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, in which capacity she addressed critical issues in nutrition among the poorest Americans, particularly women and children.

After completing her two-term limit at WFP in 2002, Bertini spent a semester as policy-maker-in-residence at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan named her U.N. undersecretary general for management in January 2003.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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