UN food agency names Carl Skau acting chief after McCain resignation

The World Food Programme has put Swedish diplomat Carl Skau in charge on an acting basis, handing the UN’s main food-aid agency interim leadership as Cindy McCain steps away for health reasons. The move keeps Skau in his current post as deputy executive director and chief operating officer, a clear signal that the agency wants continuity at the top while it manages operations across the world’s toughest crisis zones.

The transition comes at a precarious moment. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Skau was taking over as more than 360 million people worldwide faced acute food insecurity, a scale of need that turns any leadership gap into an operational risk. The permanent selection process will be run jointly by Guterres and Food and Agriculture Organization director-general Qu Dongyu, underscoring how closely the appointment is tied to the wider UN system.

McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain and a former U.S. ambassador to the UN agencies in Rome, announced on February 26, 2026 that she would step down in about three months to focus on her health. WFP said she suffered a mild stroke in October 2025 and returned to the agency’s Rome headquarters in early January 2026. Guterres thanked McCain for helping make WFP “leaner, faster and more agile,” and said her tenure helped secure new funding, expand partnerships and sustain life-saving operations that reached nearly 100 million people each year.

The leadership change also reflects the political weight attached to the post. The United States said in February 2026 that it would seek to choose McCain’s permanent successor, a reminder that Washington still exerts outsized influence over senior UN food-aid leadership even as WFP operates globally. Traditionally, the agency has been led by an American, adding another layer of sensitivity to the handoff.

Skau brings a deep internal resume to the job. WFP said he began his career with UNHCR and UNDP, and traveled extensively over the past year to Afghanistan, Sudan, Lebanon, Ukraine and Palestine to meet frontline staff, people in need, government counterparts and partners. WFP describes itself as the world’s largest humanitarian organization, and its annual review says it reached over 124 million people in 2024 despite conflict, disasters, volatility and inflation. That scale makes the interim period more than a personnel change: it is a test of whether the agency can keep food moving, funding flowing and field operations steady while the search for a permanent chief unfolds.