The World Food Programme (WFP) is an international organization within the United Nations that provides food assistance worldwide. It is the world's largest humanitarian organization and the leading provider of school meals. Founded in 1961, WFP is headquartered in Rome and has offices in 80 countries. As of 2021, it supported over 128 million people across more than 120 countries and territories.
David Muldrow Beasley is an American politician and the former Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme. A member of the Republican Party, he served one term as the 113th Governor of South Carolina from 1995 until 1999 before losing reelection to Democrat Jim Hodges. He also served as a state representative from 1981 until 1995.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan is a UN Special Political Mission tasked with assisting the people of Afghanistan.
An under-secretary-general of the United Nations (USG) is a senior official within the United Nations System, normally appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the secretary-general for a renewable term of four years. Under-secretary-general is the third highest rank in the United Nations, after the secretary-general and the deputy secretary-general. The rank is held by the heads of different UN entities, certain high officials of the United Nations Secretariat, and high-level envoys. The United Nations regards the rank as equal to that of a cabinet minister of a member state, and under-secretaries-general have diplomatic immunity under the UN Charter.
Catherine "Cathy" Bertini is an American public servant. She is the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate. She was the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program from 1992 to 2002. She served as the UN Under-Secretary for Management from 2003 to 2005. Currently she is a distinguished fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Chair of the Board of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and the Chair of the Executive Board of the Crop Trust.
Just Faaland was a Norwegian political economist. He started as an economist with OEEC in 1949. Later he worked for a number of international institutions including the World Bank, ILO, IFAD, FAO, WFP, UNDP, and the Asian Development Bank. Faaland was based as a development researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) from 1952 to 2017. With the political scientist Stein Rokkan he initiated and developed broader research programmes and employed more people in the 1950s and in 1961 they defined research programs in international economics and comparative politics. In 1965, the Development Action and Research Programme (DERAP), a development economics project on growth problems in developing countries was formally established. In the early 1980s, Faaland established a human rights programme which soon grew to become the other main focus of CMI's social science research.
Josette Sheeran is an American non-profit executive and diplomat who served in the United States Department of State. Sheeran serves as the seventh president and CEO of Asia Society since June 10, 2013. Sheeran was also the United Nations's Special Envoy for Haiti.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG), previously the United Nations Development Group (UNDG), is a consortium of 36 United Nations funds, programmes, specialized agencies, departments and offices that play a role in development. It was created by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in order to improve the effectiveness of United Nations development activities at the country level.
Nemat Talaat Shafik, Baroness Shafik,, also known as Minouche Shafik, is an Egyptian-born British-American economist. She served as the President and Vice Chancellor of the London School of Economics from September 2017 to June 2023. On 1 July 2023, she became the 20th president of Columbia University, the first woman since its founding in the year 1754. She also currently serves as Board Member of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Mansur Mukhtar is a Nigerian economist who served as Minister of Finance in the cabinet of President Umaru Yar'Adua from 17 December 2008 to March 2010 when acting president Goodluck Jonathan dissolved his cabinet.
Ertharin Cousin is an American lawyer who served as the twelfth executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme from 2012 to 2017. Following the completion of her term, Cousin became Payne Distinguished Professor at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, distinguished fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, accepted an appointment as a distinguished fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and became a trustee on the UK based Power of Nutrition Board of Directors.
George Anthony Beattie was a British civil servant, born in London. He began a public service career as a development economist in Africa in the 1960s and ended it in 2004 as a Director in the UK's Department for International Development (DFID). He helped promote the application of New Public Management concepts to the UK public sector in the 1990s, both as head of the Natural Resources Institute, then part of the Overseas Development Administration, for ten years from 1986 until its transfer to the University of Greenwich in 1996, and subsequently as a member of the Efficiency and Effectiveness Unit in the Cabinet Office. From 1997 to 2004, Beattie was Ambassador and UK Permanent Representative to the UN Food and Agriculture Agencies in Rome. Among other roles in the governing bodies in Rome he was President of the Executive Board of the World Food Programme (WFP), chair of the Audit Committee of the Executive Board of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Vice-Chair of the Finance Committee of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). He chaired the Governance Group established by WFPs Executive Board in 1999. He has trained as a coach at Henley Management College and implemented a coaching programme in WFP. He was also active in charity governance as a chair and trustee, and was a member of the Governance Forum of the National Council of Voluntary Organisations. Prior to his death he was undertaking a consultancy for the CGIAR fund Council on resource mobilisation. He died in Johannesburg on 31 March 2014 after having had a fall in Dar es Salaam on 19 March 2014.
Jonathan Lucas was a former United Nations civil servant. He was appointed Secretary of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) in 2010 in replacement of Koli Kouame.
José Graziano da Silva is a Brazilian American agronomist and writer. As a scholar, he has authored several books about the problems of agriculture in Brazil. Between 2003 and 2004, Graziano served in the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva cabinet as Extraordinary Minister for Food Security, being responsible for implementing the Fome Zero program, which was a focal point of the Lula Administration's cash transfer program Bolsa Familia. On June 26, 2011, Graziano was elected director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), becoming the first Latin American ever to hold the position. After his first term from 1 January 2012 to 31 July 2015, Graziano da Silva was re-elected for a second 4 year-term during FAO's 39th Conference.
María Eugenia (Gina) Casar is a Mexican civil servant who serves as the Executive Director of the Mexican Agency of International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID). In 2020, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Qu Dongyu appointed her as WFP Senior Adviser at the Assistant Secretary-General level.
James Charles Ingram is a former Australian diplomat, philanthropist and author whose career culminated in his post as the eighth executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), a position which he occupied for ten years.
Denise Brown is a Canadian Senior UN official and the current Head of the United Nations in Ukraine. She was appointed to this position on 28 July 2022. Prior to this appointment, she served as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General (DSRSG), Humanitarian Coordinator and Resident Coordinator in the Central African Republic.
Ismahane Elouafi is Chief Scientist of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Ranked among the 20 most influential women in science in the Islamic world, she is internationally known for her work on promoting neglected and underutilized crops, use of non-fresh water in agriculture, and empowerment of women in science.
Akram Hamid Begzadeh Jaff الدكتور اكرم حامد بك جاف (14 July 1929 – 21 November 2010) was a Kurdish leader who served in various posts in the Iraqi government and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Also known as "Al Jaff" or "Al-Jaff" in some literature & records.
Artur Andrzej Pollok is a Polish economist who serves as an permanent representative to the FAO, WFP, IFAD in Rome.
