A Superbowl Ad for Global Citizens

NFL Running back Reggie Bush, the Rolling Stones and….the World Food Program, together at last!

This ad was cut for Superbowl XLI in 2007, when a quarterback named Peyton Manning led his then-Indianapolis Colts to victory over the Chicago Bears. 

Now eight years later, Peyton Manning is back in the big game. A little bit older. A little bit wiser.   

The World Food Program is still in the game, too. But over the past 9 years, the game has gotten more fierce. When that ad first ran, the World Food Program supported 86.1 million people in 80 countries with life-saving food assistance. Since then, the number of people in need of some sort of food assistance has increased dramatically. The Syria crisis, in particular, has created skyrocketing needs. Donors are not stepping up. Last year, the cash-strapped WFP had to suspend food aid to hundred of thousands of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. Meanwhile, new food crises in Southern and eastern Africa are adding additional stress to an already over-stretched global humanitarian system.  

90 million people around the world will depend on spoke form of assistance from humanitarian agencies in 2016. And if present trends continue, the number of people in need of emergency humanitarian assistance, like food aid, will soon exceed 100 million, which is about the number of people expected to tune into Superbowl 50 on Sunday. 

It’s true, not everyone can live on football. But they need to live on something. 

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of each of the partners of Global Citizen.