2019 Sunhak Peace Prize Laureate Akinwumi Adesina has pledged to do more to advance Africa’s fight against hunger, poverty and youth underemployment.
The President of the African Development Bank, and co-Laureate Waris Dirie, a global champion against Female Genital Mutilation, shared the prestigious $1-million dollar prize at an award ceremony held on 9 February 2019 in Seoul, South Korea.
According to Adesina: “We are in a race with time to unlock the full potential of Africa.”
He is donating his $500 000 share of the prize to fighting hunger in Africa.
“There is tremendous suffering going on in the world. While progress is being made, we are not winning the war on global hunger. There cannot be peace in a world that is hungry. Hunger persists in regions and places going through conflicts, wars and fragility. Those who suffer the most are women and children,” Adesina says.
Waris Dirie has played a leading role in drawling global attention to the fight and against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), and the need for legislation to ban the practice.
Dirie says: “Female Genital Mutilation scars victims physically, emotionally, and mentally.”
The World Health Organisation estimates that more than 200-million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is carried out on young girls between infancy and the age 15.