CAIRO — The Committee of Prince Talal International Prize for Human Development announced that "Eliminating hunger, providing food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture", the second goal of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, is the prize subject for the year 2020. Selecting this subject comes as a contribution to the efforts that aim to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the United Nations and the World Food Program, “Today, more than 820 million people regularly go to bed hungry, of whom about 135 million suffer from acute hunger largely due to man-made conflicts, climate change and economic downturns. The COVID-19 pandemic could now double that number, putting an additional 130 million people at risk of suffering of acute hunger by the end of 2020.” The Prize Committee, chaired by Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Talal, expressed, at its last meeting, that based on the committee’s approach to align the subjects of the Prize with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the selection of the year 2020 subject was made after analyzing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the SDG’s in general. Accordingly, the second goal "Zero Hunger" was chosen as the subject of this year"s Prize to award the innovative development projects that will contribute alleviate the perils of hunger by increasing agricultural productivity and sustainable food production. Nominations are now open for the four categories as shown below: • The First Category ($400,000) is for projects nominated by UN, international, and regional organizations. • The Second Category ($ 300,000) is for projects nominated by national NGOs. • The Third Category ($200,000) is for projects nominated by government bodies, public institutions, and Social Business enterprises/Foundations. • The Fourth Category ($100,000) is for projects initiated or led by individuals. The Committee invites the research centers, universities, organizations, associations and Foundations to submit the nominations on the link: https://agfund.org/ . The deadline for receiving nominations is Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020. AGFUND has established Prince Talal International Prize to become a leading mechanism to identify successful human development projects, reward them and disseminate their innovative ideas to best contribute human development. The committee of the prize is chaired by Prince Abdul Aziz with memberships of prominent figures in development; Queen Sofia of Spain as the representative of Europe; Mercedes Menafra, the former first lady of Uruguay, as the representative of the Americas; Dr. Ahmed Muhammed Ali, the former president of the Islamic Development Bank Group, as the representative of the Arab Region, Professor Muhammed Yunus, a Noble Peace Prize Laureate and founder of Grameen Bank, as the representative of Asia; and Dr. Yusuf Sayed Abdullah, the former director-general of the OPEC Fund for International Development, as the representative of Africa. — SG