Cindy McCain tapped as head of World Food Program

Cindy McCain is set to take over as head of the United Nations’ World Food Program, putting the longtime political spouse at the top of the globe’s largest humanitarian group and on the frontlines of a growing global food crisis.

The United Nations will announce McCain’s appointment Thursday, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move caps a sharp rise in the global food policy realm for McCain, a close political ally of President Joe Biden and the wife of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz).

The WFP position is apolitical and the U.N. takes great pains to keep it that way. But McCain’s experience campaigning for her husband and relationships with U.S. politicians will be critical as she seeks to marshal resources for a record-high 349 million people suffering acute food insecurity globally, amid a geopolitical firestorm over the war in Ukraine, concerns about China hoarding global food supplies and, most importantly, calls for a pullback in funding support from members of her own party in the U.S. Congress.

The media outlet Devex first reported McCain was set to be tapped for the role.

While McCain has participated in decades of humanitarian work, her appointment last year as U.S. ambassador to three U.N. food and agriculture agencies marked her first formal role in food policy. In that post, which is based in Rome, she has been part of a small cadre of U.S. diplomats working to limit the damage from Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has sent global food prices sky-rocketing and threatened to destabilize dozens of fragile countries already on the brink of widespread hunger. McCain described her initial months in the job as “a baptism by fire,” in an interview with POLITICO last year.

McCain said in an interview with POLITICO last month that she saw “room for improvement from the Middle East” in contributing to global food aid amid the fast-moving crisis. Asked about China’s role in global food security and U.S. criticism of Beijing for not doing more, McCain urged the Chinese government to be engaged. But she added, “There’s always strings attached with China.”

McCain will replace David Beasley, the World Food Program’s current executive director and the former Republican governor of South Carolina. People close to Beasley say he would likely consider pursuing a Senate bid in his home state, should Sen. Tim Scott (R) run for president in 2024 or Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) retire in the next few years.

McCain met Wednesday with Beasley and top United Nations food program officials, including Qu Dongyu, the director general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

A person close to McCain had described the prospect of leading the World Food Program as a “role of a lifetime” for her.