Cindy McCain will probably be stepping down as head of the United Nations World Meals Programme to concentrate on her well being, the humanitarian group introduced on Thursday.
McCain, 71, suffered a gentle stroke in October 2025, in response to the group. She plans to step down because the group’s govt director in three months, it mentioned.
“With a heavy coronary heart, I’m saying my intention to step down because the Govt Director of the World Meals Programme,” McCain mentioned in an announcement launched via the group. “Serving this unimaginable group has been the distinction of a lifetime.”
On this Might 7, 2025, file picture, Cindy McCain, govt director of the United Nations World Meals Programme (WFP), delivers a speech whereas attending a panel through the Asian Growth Financial institution’s 58th Annual Assembly at MiCo – Milano Conference Centre in Milan, Italy.
Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Photos, FILE
McCain, who’s the widow of the late Arizona Sen. John McCain, stepped away for a number of months following her stroke earlier than returning in early January to the group’s headquarters in Rome. She mentioned she hoped to finish her five-year time period “however my well being has not recovered to a degree that enables me to completely serve the large calls for of this job.”
“This is among the most troublesome selections I’ve ever needed to make,” McCain mentioned. “Over the previous three years, we now have delivered life-saving and life-changing help for tens of millions of the world’s most susceptible individuals — and this unwavering dedication will probably be extra vital than ever within the years to return.”
McCain has been serving since April 2023 as the manager director of the World Meals Programme, which has a presence in additional than 120 international locations and over 20,000 employees worldwide.
On this Jan. 14, 2025, file picture, govt director of the World Meals Programme Cindy McCain speaks with the Related Press in Damascus, Syria.
Omar Sanadiki/AP, FILE
“Throughout her tenure she has pushed a number of unprecedented modifications to reform and scale the group’s talents together with overhauling its world construction, streamlining its operations and processes, scaling revolutionary digital applied sciences, and diversifying its private and non-private partnership efforts,” the World Meals Programme mentioned in a press launch.
McCain beforehand served because the U.S. ambassador to the UN Businesses for Meals and Agriculture for 2 years.
