Pressure is mounting on Cindy McCain as an anonymous letter from staff of the World Food Programme is making the rounds demanding her immediate resignation as head of the global food agency for failing to “call for a ceasefire” in Gaza or “demand peace.”
McCain continues to feel the heat
WFP chief Cindy McCain is facing calls from her agency’s rank and file to step down, as staff have circulated a letter to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, U.S. President Joe Biden, and WFP’s executive board demanding her immediate resignation for her response, or lack thereof, to the crisis in Gaza.
It’s unclear who wrote the damning letter — leaked to our Senior Global Reporter Colum Lynch — whether it was signed, or if it has actually been sent, but it comes on the heels of another letter-writing campaign that harshly criticized her for attending an awards ceremony honoring the people of Israel while failing to attend a commemoration for Palestinian U.N. workers killed during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
A spokesperson for Guterres said they have to wait until the mailroom opens today and WFP has yet to respond to a request for comment.
“Enough’s enough: Cindy McCain must go — she is not fit for office and is doing damage to WFP’s reputation as the standard-bearer in highlighting the links between conflict and hunger,” the letter says.
“More than 14,500 people have been killed in Gaza in recent weeks — sadly, the World Food Programme has yet to call for a ceasefire, or in a robust manner demand peace.”
McCain has signed onto two joint statements by heads of relief agencies calling for a humanitarian cease-fire but never issued such a call solely on behalf of WFP.
The letter slammed McCain’s lukewarm response to news that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a four-day cease-fire — which began today — that will see the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails. The “humanitarian pause” will also allow aid and fuel to enter the besieged enclave.
“McCain has the effrontery to praise it while still stopping short of calling for a ceasefire. In a statement, she’s said: ‘While this agreement is an important first step, four days’ worth of aid will not make a meaningful difference in this ocean of need.’
“This is too little too late — Cindy McCain brings shame to the office of the Executive Director at WFP. As staff and supporters of World Food Programme, we demand that Director McCain resign immediately,” the letter reads.
School toilets savings
Never underestimate the importance of a clean toilet. Who’d have thought — that failure to keep up with maintenance in school toilets could add hundreds of billions of extra dollars to health care costs worldwide? So says a new report, “Tackling Toilet Loss.”
The report found that in countries including Nigeria, India, the Philippines, and Ecuador, poor plumbing and upkeep in school toilets added as much as $10 billion in societal costs between 2015 and 2021 due to poor cleanliness, which led to faster transmission of diseases such as worms and diarrhea.
Access to safe and clean sanitation is one of the laggards among the Sustainable Development Goals, writes Alessio Perrone for Devex. The report makes a financial case for governments to invest in maintenance to yield billions of dollars worth of net benefits every year.
“I think there’s a big push in the development sphere for us to meet the SDGs and close the toilet gap for children,” Shivangi Jain, the report’s project director, tells Alessio. “And yes, we need to build more toilets — but that’s not the only thing: If children can’t use those toilets, we might as well not be spending that money in the first place.”
The report found that in the four countries, 1.2 million school toilets built since 2015 were “lost” to lack of maintenance after spending some $1.9 billion on their construction.
The lack of usable school toilets can have longer-term impacts on children’s futures, the report found, causing them to miss school, affecting learning and the quality of their education, which can hinder job opportunities.
How UN gets countries to pay
The United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA, introduced a funding model back in 2021 that gets countries to share the cost of providing contraceptives and maternal health medicines to their populations. Funding for the agency’s Supplies Partnership program has been lacking, writes Senior Reporter Jenny Lei Ravelo.
UNFPA is a major provider of donated reproductive health products in many low- and middle-income countries. So far this year it has spent approximately $177 million to get reproductive health products to 54 countries. But external funding — $782 million — has fallen short of its needs totaling $1.25 billion for 2021-2025.
So to address the challenges, UNFPA introduced the subsidization model where countries that receive reproductive health supplies from the agency sign a compact committing to share the cost of the program from 2023 onward. A total of 44 countries have signed the compact, the majority of which are African countries.
Under the compact, governments commit to make mandatory contributions to the program and allocate domestic funding for reproductive health products. It also defines governments’ roles in supply planning, as well as clearance, warehousing, and the distribution of commodities.
Africa’s pharma struggle
The vast bulk of pharmaceuticals in Africa are imported. Why is that? Why aren’t more medicines produced in Africa, by Africans, for Africans?
Universal Corporation Limited sits on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, a two-decade-old pharmaceutical manufacturing factory that produces over 100 formulations of medicines like antibiotics and drugs for malaria and HIV.
It’s the only prequalified World Health Organization facility in Kenya, writes senior global health reporter Sara Jerving. And recently, it became the first manufacturer in Africa to receive WHO approval to produce the antimalarial drug, sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine plus amodiaquine.
But even with an urgent need for companies like Universal Corporation, the company is reliant on donor support from entities such as UNICEF, USAID, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
“We are not yet sustainable. We are surviving,” Universal Corporation Managing Director Palu Dhanani said at a conference on global health supply chains.
Creating a landscape conducive for pharma manufacturing won’t happen overnight, writes Sara. In the meantime, pharmaceutical companies face major hurdles to becoming sustainable — there are challenges competing with foreign companies that benefit from economies of scale, a disjointed continental regulatory regime, and accessing affordable finance.
But there is optimism the region is on the right track – it’s now working toward taking a regional approach to manufacturing, integrating markets, developing the workforce, and creating a local value chain.
“It’s not an easy road, but we can get it done,” said Pushpa Vijayaraghavan, a member of the governance board of the Medicines Patent Pool, during the conference. She has supported multiple pharma manufacturing projects on the African continent.
Helen is an award-winning journalist and Senior Editor at Devex, where she edits coverage on global development in the Americas. Based in Colombia, she started her career in London as a reporter for Euromoney Publications before moving to Hong Kong to work for a daily newspaper.
