WORLD NEWS | US Ambassador Cindy McCain to lead UN World Food Program

United Nations, March 3 (AP) U.S. Ambassador Cindy McCain was named Thursday to head the United Nations World Food Programme, the world’s largest humanitarian organization that aims to help nearly 150 million people this year. Humans respond to conflicts, disasters and the impacts of climate change.

John McCain, the widow of the Arizona senator and 2008 Republican presidential candidate, was appointed. Announced jointly by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Qu Dongyu.

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Since November 2021, McCain has served as the special envoy of the United States to the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. The heads of the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization called her a “human rights defender” who “has long been speaking for the voiceless.”

McCain will succeed former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, who led the World Food Program for the past six years, including responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and the global food crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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When the World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020, Beasley took the helm, in part because it was “a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”

Guterres and Qu praised Beasley’s “deep sympathy”.

“He humanized the women and children most affected by hunger in the world and used his powerful voice to bring awareness and massive resources to crisis after crisis,” they said in a joint statement.

McCain will take over as executive director after Beasley’s term ends on April 4. Her appointment was made after consultation with the WFP Executive Board.

Ambassador to Poland Andrej Pollok, chair of the board, welcomed her choice. She said she took over “at a moment when the world is facing the worst food security crisis in modern history”.

As a children’s advocate, McCain served on the board of directors of the nonprofit Operation Smile, which addresses facial deformities in children around the world, and visited India, Morocco and the United States, the joint statement said. Vietnam.

McCain also founded the American Volunteer Medical Corps to provide emergency medical and surgical care to impoverished children around the world, the heads of the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization said. In her personal capacity, she has conducted extensive missions on behalf of WFP, visiting mother and infant feeding programs in Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Associated Press)

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