World’s fastest marathon runner joins UN race to beat hunger

Marathon world record holder Paul Tergat today joined the United Nations race to defeat global hunger when he was appointed a special ambassador of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), which already feeds more than 15 million children in 64 countries and aims to reach 50 million by 2007.

Mr. Tergat, who received food aid as an eight-year-old school child in Kenya’s Rift Valley, will use the high-profile platform of international athletics to raise awareness of WFP’s school feeding programme.

“Paul is a natural advocate for WFP,” the agency’s Executive Director, James T. Morris, told a news conference in Rome after naming the runner "Ambassador Against Hunger." “Few people are better qualified to explain how food aid can transform the lives of the world’s 300 million chronically hungry children,” he added.

Mr. Tergat, who ran himself into the record books in Berlin last September by becoming the first man to run the Marathon in less than two hours four minutes, slicing a remarkable 43 seconds off the previous best for the 26-mile race, struggled to make the three-mile trek to school as a hungry child in the drought- and poverty-ridden district of Baringo.

But his life changed in 1977, when WFP started distributing free school lunches at his Riwo Primary School.

“Without food, it was very difficult to walk to school, let alone concentrate on our studies. WFP’s lunches made it easier for us to make the most of our education,” the 34-year-old athlete said. “A full meal was also the perfect incentive to keep us in the classroom.”

In 2002, WFP fed 15.6 million children in 64 countries. It aims to reach 32 million children by the end of 2005 and 50 million by 2007. But in the short-term the programme is plagued by funding shortages, in particular in Chad, Colombia, Haiti and Gambia. Even the Kenyan programme, which benefited Mr. Tergat, has been under constant threat, requiring a generous contribution from the Kenyan Government and the addition of limited WFP multilateral funds to secure it for 2005.

Tergat joins former US Senator George McGovern and Cape Verdean singer Cesaria Evora as WFP Ambassadors. Other personalities who are partnering with the agency include former rugby World Cup winners David Kirk and Nick Farr-Jones, actor Sean Connery, Japanese jazz artist Keiko Matsui and Ethiopian singer Aster Aweke.