WFP Executive Board welcomes appointment of Cindy McCain as the new head of the UN World Food Program

Wednesday, 8 March 2023 00:56 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Representative and Country Director of WFP Sri Lanka Abdur Rahim Siddiqui greeting Cindy McCain when she visited Sri Lanka in September 2022

The President of the Executive Board of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) Artur Andrzej Pollok, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Poland has welcomed the appointment of Cindy Hensley McCain of the United States of America as WFP’s next Executive Director.

The appointment was made by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations Q.U. Dongyu, after consultations with the WFP Board at a special session at WFP’s Rome headquarters.

Pollok said: “McCain takes over as head of the World Food Program at a moment when the world confronts the most serious food security crisis in modern history and this leadership role has never been more important. We wish her well and can assure her she will have the full support of the Executive Board.”

Cindy McCain presently serves as the United States Permanent Representative to the UN Agencies in Rome (the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Program).

She is the former Chair of the Board of Trustees of the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University. She served on the Board of Directors of Project C.U.R.E., CARE, Operation Smile, the Halo Trust and the advisory boards of Too Small To Fail and Warriors and Quiet Waters. McCain holds an undergraduate degree in Education and a Master’s in Special Education from the University of Southern California. She is the wife of the late U.S. Senator John McCain.

McCain will succeed David Beasley as Executive Director, who will have served six years when his term ends on 4 April. The increasing number of conflicts, climate shocks and economic turmoil has led to a sharp rise in the number of acutely food-insecure people struggling to get enough food to feed their families – up almost 200 million since before the coronavirus pandemic. WFP provided more than 158 million people with food, cash and vouchers in 2022, more than in any previous year, and received a record $ 14 billion in funding.

In September 2022, Cindy McCain visited Sri Lanka where she met with recipients of US-funded cash assistance programs carried out by WFP through its ongoing emergency operation.