The executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, who won the Nobel Peace Prize two years ago, says he will step down at the end of a six-year tenure at the helm of the world’s largest humanitarian organization.
David Beasley, a Republican, served one term as South Carolina’s governor from 1995 to 1999. In a statement Saturday, Beasley said he will step down at the end of his term in April 2023.
“Serving in this capacity has been the greatest joy and deepest heartbreak of my life,” Beasley said. “Thanks to the generosity of governments and individuals, we have fed so many millions of people. But the reality is that we have not been able to feed everyone, and the tragedy of extreme hunger in a rich world persists.”
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World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley speaks during an interview in Rome on November 2, 2021.
(AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis, File)
Beasley was appointed to the UN post in 2017 by then-US President Donald Trump, and was recommended for the job by Nikki Haley, another former South Carolina governor. Haley also served as the United States ambassador to the UN during the Trump administration. Beasley succeeded Ertharin Cousin, an American lawyer and former US ambassador.
The World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 for fighting hunger and seeking to end its use as a “weapon of war and conflict” at a time when the coronavirus pandemic threatened to exacerbate famine.
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In March 2022, Beasley’s term was extended under the Biden administration for another year. In September, he said that when he took over in 2017, only 80 million people worldwide were headed for starvation. But weather problems, the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine pushed that number to 135 million.
The Rome-based World Food Program was established in 1961 at the behest of US President Dwight Eisenhower and has brought aid to multiple crises, including the 1984 Ethiopian famine, the 2004 Asian tsunami, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Beasley said the process to select his successor has already begun.
