Cindy McCain to Step Down as World Food Programme Executive Director

Cindy McCain announced she would be stepping down later this month as Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme. She came to the role three years ago. The widow of Sen. John McCain had a mild stroke in October.

The global food crisis is deepening. Some 363 million people are at risk of acute hunger this year according to the UN World Food Programme, up from 266 million last year. That number last year was double the number from a decade ago.

Fertilizer producer Mosaic announced heavy production cuts yesterday. @FortuneMagazine reported that the crisis is also driving rising food prices with impacts rippling across business supply chains. McCain shared lessons from her tenure in an interview this week.

“You can either feed them now or fight them later,” she said. ” She added that the impacts that food-related systems have to the struggling world are exponential, from keeping a child in school to changing communities and livelihoods.

U.S. Farmer, McCain said, and helps the American farmer in the process. “When I came to WFP it was very clear they would have to slim down because the money was not going to be the same,” McCain said. ” She said she worries about the American taxpayer all the time.

“Taking food from the hungry to give to the starving because there is not enough money weighs on her a great deal,” McCain stated. U.S. that cut funding but also the EU, countries across the board in Asia, and Central and South America.

“Nobody had that kind of money and this was happening as more conflict and climate change began to be seen,” she said. ” McCain called on the private sector to engage. “The private sector needs to understand why WFP does this work because it affects supply chain, work, and people,” she said.

On leadership, she recalled final advice from her husband. “When John was about to leave us he told her that ‘the easy decisions are easy to make, the right decisions are hard to make,’” McCain said. She thinks of that quote every time she is faced with something that is hard.