Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in a ceremony held online because of the coronavirus, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned Thursday of a "hunger pandemic" it said could be worse than Covid-19.

"Because of so many wars, climate change, the widespread use of hunger as a political and military weapon, and a global health pandemic that makes all of that exponentially worse, 270 million people are marching toward starvation," WFP executive director David Beasley said.

"Failure to address their needs will cause a hunger pandemic which will dwarf the impact of Covid," he said in remarks broadcast from the WFP's headquarters in Rome.