WFP only – Cindy McCain, executive director of the U.N. World Food Programme, says urgent food and livelihood needs are rising as WFP’s funding falls short—while conflicts and attacks on aid work keep humanitarian access from scaling. In a wide-ranging interview aired Ma
By the time Cindy McCain describes what “on the ground” can look like, the numbers are already moving fast—and her warning is blunt: the system that tries to keep food moving at scale is running short.
Halfway through 2026. she says the data shows “a record high number of people seeking urgent food and livelihood assistance. ” and that the trajectory “is not very good.” The reason. she says. is not just the size of the need. but the gap between need and money. McCain tells Margaret Brennan that WFP has received only “half of the money that we need to be able to feed the amount of people we… are looking at right now.”.
Brennan presses on what’s behind that shortfall—whether it’s tied to U.S. cuts or a broader global pullback. McCain answers that it is “both,” adding: “U.S. and the global pullback.” She frames it as a collective squeeze rather than one country acting alone: “It’s not one country by any stretch… but… collectively everybody.”.
She connects the funding shift to a harder political reality, where some governments have turned inward. McCain says some countries have begun “looking internally. ” with constituents asking for “less money for foreign aid and more money for… domestic uses.” She also warns that the need is not stable. WFP. she says. is already seeing “several more famines. ” and she marks the scale of the shock: “we’ve already had two… which is unprecedented. we add two more.”.
In her telling, the response can’t come from one place. McCain argues that countries and the private sector both have to step in—“collectively take all of us to be able to fix this.” She says WFP has increased involvement with its private-sector and corporate partners. but that the gap still has to be closed with broader participation.
That gap is showing up in emergencies where hunger and disease collide. Brennan turns to the emergency response to Ebola in the Congo. McCain says WFP is “a large part of the emergency response there” alongside the World Health Organization and “several other NGOs.” She describes the situation as “it’s not good. ” saying “it’s hitting people in a mass way. ” and that “there’s really no way to know right now how many people have been affected by this.”.
She calls it “a rampage” and says the work is not only about treatment—it’s logistics, supplies, and getting people in and moving resources “in the region.” “This is going to take a real-world effort,” she says. “This is very deadly.”
When Brennan asks whether WFP can keep its workers on the ground. McCain says WFP’s workers are already there. but describes a “duty of care” problem she says has become urgent because “there’s no adequate facilities set up to handle that.” She says one of the reasons for work planned that day was to take care of “our own people. ” and that WFP is putting together “a task force and a team” to ensure workers are protected.
Conflicts elsewhere are also shaping what WFP can and cannot do—especially movement and access. Brennan asks about Sudan. calling it “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” as described by the United Nations. and asks whether there is “any movement forward.” McCain says there is “a little bit of progress. ” but underscores how small that progress is. “Little means really little,” she says.
She says WFP has been able to move “more of our people on into the Sudan side rather than staging out of Chad. ” but she describes the fragility of access: “on any given day one of the factions may get involved and stop us from moving at all and getting any food in it at… any time.” Even so. McCain says she believes this will eventually be solved. and she adds a personal observation from having been in Sudan: she says the people she met “had no hope. ” yet she insists they also receive care and that “people do care about them.”.
The Middle East is where her warnings about delay and access turn sharply into time-based consequences. She says WFP has “some operations inside of Iran,” and Brennan notes the lack of free press on the ground. McCain says WFP has “a very small team” and that it is “getting some intel out of there. ” with a team “not only to listen to. but to protect as well.”.
Her description centers on what happens when movement becomes impossible. McCain argues that with the Strait of Hormuz shut and bombings “on both sides all the way up and down. ” people become food insecure and “they’re going to starve.” She says the priority is to “end this and make sure that we can open the Strait of Hormuz. ” and she emphasizes the timeline: it “will take us months to get back on track when they do open it.”.
Brennan asks why it would take months—whether food ships are stuck or prices are the issue. McCain says the problem is “Prices. availability. movement.” She offers a specific example from Afghanistan: she says what would “usually take us three weeks” is now taking “almost three months.” The human impact follows immediately in her account. “Women and children… are always the first to be hit. ” McCain says. adding that people are starving while fertilizer. seeds. and other items that help stave off hunger are “being moved around.”.
In Gaza and Lebanon, she ties broader conflict dynamics to whether trucks can reach people. Brennan describes ceasefire violations. “hundreds of Palestinians killed since the ceasefire was announced. ” Hamas and armed groups not disarming “like they were supposed to. ” and Israeli troops still being present. McCain responds that the longer-term impact is “not good. ” saying WFP “staved off hunger in Gaza when it was finally— the ceasefire held. ” and when WFP “were able to get trucks in at scale.”.
She says the situation is back to what it was because “We can’t get trucks in at scale.” She warns WFP is facing more than one crisis at once—“possibly losing a generation of children.” She names the places she says this access problem is hitting: “Lebanon. Gaza. Syria. Sudan. ” plus “Ukraine.” She also stresses the danger to humanitarian workers. saying “access and being able to get in at scale is most important. ” and insisting that “humanitarian workers are not targets” and that “humanitarian law” is not being respected “right now.”.
Brennan presses McCain on what she means by “losing a generation of children.” McCain describes the pathway: children are either “not getting enough food” or “what they’re getting is not nutritious enough. ” and she adds that “there’s no schools open” and that there is no “proper housing. clean water. ” and no “medicine.” “That spells disaster for a child. ” she says. She then brings the personal lens she says she can’t escape. “I’m… one that has… as a mother first. and a grandmother six times over. ” McCain says. adding that she understands desperation because “you will do anything to feed your children. anything as a parent. ” and that the inability to do so is “really alarming and very desperate.”.
When Brennan brings up McCain’s phrase about feeding people now or “fight them later. ” McCain ties hunger directly to recruitment and radicalization. “We believe that… because when folks who are hungry can’t get adequate nutrition or food. they will turn to the bad guys. ” she says. arguing that “food’s offered there.” In her account. that makes it “very difficult for people to turn that down” when someone is trying to feed their families—and she says it also contributes to “a growing number of… factions around the world as a result of it.”.
She links the obstacles to work and access to the growing threat against aid workers. Brennan notes that. according to the U.N. “over 1. 000 aid workers [have been] killed over the past three years. ” and asks why it has become “never been harder to work in this field.” McCain says she sees “a perfect storm of all of it. ” laying out several factors at once: “People aren’t caring. ” she says; “factions aren’t caring”; and the inability to move “in” and “in at scale” is part of the problem. But she says the biggest issue remains conflict.
She argues that what has to happen is “conflict, and ceasefire, allowing complete unfettered access,” plus “a full respect for humanitarian law and humanitarian aid workers”—and she says “that simply isn’t happening at all right now.”
McCain then points to recent incidents in Ukraine. saying WFP had “a convoy attacked last week” and also “our warehouse blown up. ” and says those were “both in Ukraine.” Brennan replies that she saw the details—“A drone hit a truck and Russia hit a warehouse with a missile”—and asks about deliberateness. McCain says WFP “believe they were targeted.” She also says she is hoping the U.S. will condemn what happened. describing that she “has to believe in the good faith of the American people” and that she hopes “they will stand up for what’s right.”.
For McCain, this all feeds into a political fight at home as well as the operational fight abroad. Brennan asks about comments McCain made after being asked about the conservative movement—where she said aid “has become a dirty word” and described “being a humanitarian” as being treated as “useless.” McCain says that remark came from “frustration speaking to a great degree. ” and she insists there are “many. many. many good people in the United States” who are willing to help. But she argues WFP needs more—“actionable items”—not only from the United States but from other countries as well. saying “We can’t do this alone.”.
Brennan asks whether China or Russia or the European powers are stepping up enough. McCain’s answer is straightforward: “No.” She then adds that she remains hopeful that she can “eventually put myself out of business.”
She also talks about the U.S. policy shift from “aid” to “trade not aid,” describing the Trump administration’s argument that assistance should be more efficient. Brennan asks whether WFP has felt impacts from the dismantling of USAID. McCain says “I do” and adds: “AID was an intimate part of all of these things… and of course we relied on them.” She says she wishes USAID still existed. but that it was “the choice of this administration. ” and she says WFP has to work within that reality. She also says she is hoping to restore some “soft power aspects” that she says U.S. aid supported.
Brennan then pushes on a defense the administration makes: that the U.S. shouldn’t bear “the full burden of taking care of every person on Earth.” McCain says. “I don’t disagree.” She argues instead that multiple questions have to be answered—especially how money is spent. She says she knew when she took on WFP that the organization needed to scale back and become “slimmer. ” operating “within our means.” She says WFP has done that. and says the ability to question spending is legitimate: “People have a right to ask how the money is being spent.”.
But she returns to the same point again: the goal remains getting “the most food and the most access to the people we serve. and those are ones who cannot help themselves.” She says the work requires WFP to “become more nimble. more effective. ” to “make ourselves much better. ” including “better use of… AI. [and] better use of technology.”.
At the end of the interview, Brennan asks McCain about stepping back from the job within “the next few days.” She also asks who will fill the role, and what advice McCain would give to whoever takes over—especially as she says her own name and leadership help her lobby Republican lawmakers.
McCain says she goes to “both sides. ” calling food security “nonpartisan. ” and says she talks to “everybody. anybody who will talk to me about food security.” Her advice is personal and practical: she hopes the next leader “will lead from their heart. ” and she wants the job run with an emphasis on pushing work “to the field” rather than keeping it at “headquarters.” Above all. she says whoever takes the role must be willing “to take risks.”.
Before the interview ends, McCain thanks Brennan, and the conversation leaves a single through-line: when funding falls short and access breaks down—when aid convoys are attacked, warehouses are hit, shipping routes are constrained, and ceasefires fail—hunger does not wait for politics to catch up.
Cindy McCain WFP World Food Programme hunger humanitarian aid Ebola Congo Sudan Darfur Gaza Lebanon Iran Strait of Hormuz humanitarian law aid workers USAID Trump administration food security