WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain to step down, citing health concern

Cindy McCain announced plans on Thursday to step down as the executive director of the World Food Programme in three months, bringing a premature end to a tumultuous term marked by financial retrenchment and internal dissent over her handling of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. McCain, who “suffered a mild stroke” in October, concluded that the demands of leading the world’s chief food agency were too great to permit her adequate time to focus on her recovery, the United Nations food agency said in a statement. She was originally scheduled to serve out a five-year term ending in April 2028. “With a heavy heart, I am announcing my intention to step down as the Executive Director of the World Food Programme,” McCain said in the statement. “Serving this incredible organization has been the honor of a lifetime.” During the transition, McCain’s deputy, Carl Skau of Sweden, will serve as officer in charge of the Rome-based food agency whenever she is away from the agency’s Rome headquarters. McCain’s departure also provides the Trump administration with its first opportunity to put forward its own candidate to lead a major U.N. humanitarian agency. The executive director of WFP is officially appointed jointly by the U.N. secretary-general and the director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization. But in practice, the post is traditionally given to an American national nominated by the U.S. administration in power, reflecting Washington’s financial clout. And McCain’s move comes just days after the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. agencies in Rome, Lynda Blanchard, underscored the need for WFP and other U.N. agencies — including the Food and Agriculture Organization — to find greater efficiencies in its work. “U.N. duplication and mandate creep takes our focus from helping communities and countries become self-sufficient, blurs accountability, and inhibits our capacity to get the best results,” Blanchard said Tuesday at WFP’s executive board meeting. “To this end, the United States expects to see WFP and FAO eliminate duplication and work better together. This must begin now, and I am already investing my time and energy to make this happen.” The U.S. has been the dominant force behind the World Food Programme since its founding in 1961, maintaining a near monopoly on the top job over the past six decades, and providing U.S. farmers and shipping companies with access to a multibillion-dollar-a-year market in the export of surplus food. Sources familiar with the transition say that Blanchard and Kip Tom, a U.S. ambassador to the U.N. agencies in Rome during President Donald Trump’s first term, are being considered as potential replacements for McCain. “Kip Tom wants the job for sure,” said one Republican source tracking the matter, noting that he is close to Brooke Rollins, U.S. secretary of agriculture, who is a key advocate for farmers who benefit from the supply of surplus food to WFP. “He is the frontrunner.” “He will implement an America First agenda in WFP and the UN more broadly. WFP could use a good DOGE-ing and Kip would definitely do that,” the Republican source, referring to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which played a central role in dismantling Washington foreign aid infrastructure. Another source said a Trump appointee could accelerate a shift away from cash-based assistance and toward in-kind food aid at WFP, which more directly benefits American farmers. McCain, the widow of the late Republican Sen. John McCain, was appointed to the top U.N. food relief job in 2023 by former President Joe Biden, a close family friend. Her appointment followed years of public friction between the McCain family and Donald Trump. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump publicly belittled John McCain’s military service as a Vietnam War prisoner of war, saying he preferred people who were not captured. Cindy McCain later broke with her party to endorse Biden in the 2020 election. Since Trump’s return to office, some Trump allies and conservative commentators have questioned whether she should remain in the post. A New York Post article, citing a former Trump official, suggested she should resign if she did not align the agency more closely with administration priorities. Conservative activist Laura Loomer has also publicly called for her removal. Her tenure has also coincided with a sharp financial contraction. McCain succeeded David Beasley, who oversaw a sweeping expansion of the agency, adding more than 3,000 staff and growing WFP’s budget from $5.8 billion in 2016 to $14.1 billion in 2022. But the record-high spending that marked the final year of his term proved unsustainable. Since 2023, overall funding has fallen steeply. In McCain’s first year, WFP faced the largest funding gap in its history, receiving $8.3 billion of the $23.5 billion it sought, forcing deep cuts to food rations for some of the world’s most vulnerable populations. The United States, historically WFP’s dominant donor, has also pulled back. After contributions surged past $7 billion during the Ukraine crisis in 2022, U.S. funding fell sharply the following year and has declined further since. “When she arrived in 2023, she walked into a shortfall of cash after the COVID all time high raised by her predecessor ran low and she knew she would have to pare back,” Catherine Bertini, a former executive director of WFP, told Devex by email. “And then the US and other donor cuts hit. And of course the world didn’t stop. She has been leading WFP through a triple challenge. All the best to her and to all our WFP colleagues.” In her first year, McCain came under fire from her agency’s rank and file after failing to attend a November 2023 commemoration for the more than 100 U.N. Palestinian workers killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, while participating days later in an awards ceremony honoring the people of Israel. The standoff culminated in a raw and highly emotional Zoom exchange between McCain and her Middle East staff that ended with both sides in tears. But colleagues praised her role. “Cindy McCain’s leadership at @WFP has touched millions of lives,” Amy Pope, the director-general of the International Organization for Migration, tweeted after the announcement. “Her courage, compassion, and unwavering dedication to people facing hunger set a powerful example for all of us. I wish her strength and healing as she focuses on her health. I will miss her partnership.”