“The number one thing we can do to reduce hunger in the world is to reduce the amount of conflict that is happening all around the world,” Luke Lindberg, the new executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), said in his first media address last week.

Conflict is the main driver of hunger today, driving two-thirds of the acute food insecurity affecting 266 million people worldwide. “Conflict is a man-made situation. It is something that we can solve,” added Lindberg, who assumed office on October 26.

Earlier this year, the WFP said that the “conflict in the Middle East” – a catch-all phrase for Israeli genocide in Gaza, US-Israeli war on Iran, and the Saudi war on Yemen – “is deepening this food crisis to an alarming degree,” warning of “record numbers of acute hunger if it continues.”​

On the heels of this threat, El Niño will likely push another 49 million into acute food insecurity, warned Lindberg.

Identifying Sudan, South Sudan, and Somalia – all in Africa – as the worst cases to prioritize, he said that his first visit as the head of WFP will be to Sudan, where the world’s hunger crisis is unfolding as the civil war fueled and funded by foreign powers continues into its fourth year.

“A pat on the back” instead of the much-needed funding

The reason for his travel, he explained, will be to give the frontline humanitarian workers “a pat on the back” and say “thank you for your service.” However, humanitarian workers in Sudan need more than a pat on the back. They need funding, which has been reduced by half.

Following an eight-day visit to Sudan in September, Lindberg’s predecessor, Carl Skau, the then Acting Executive Director of the WFP, complained that the organization was being forced to cut back on food assistance due to fund cuts. “We now have the capacity, we have the presence, but we are not fully using that space because of the lack of funding.” He warned of the risk that “we will have to scale back even further,” he said.

The WFP’s total budget dropped from nearly $9.76 billion in 2024 to $6.52 billion in 2025 to less than $5.89 billion in 2026, as of November 3. Most of this decline is driven by the Trump administration’s fund cuts.

The US – whose population of just over 4% of the world owns almost 36% of global personal wealth – has historically been the WFP’s largest donor, funding nearly half of its budget.

The Trump administration slashed over half of its funding to the WFP in 2025, reducing it to $2.06 billion from almost $4.5 billion in 2024. This year, it has contributed just over $1.7 billion.​

Lindberg had served as Trump’s Under Secretary of Agriculture for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs from August 2025 to September 2026, when he resigned to head the WFP. ​

Several reporters asked Lindberg if he would use his close relation to the Trump administration to re-secure the funds the US has slashed.​

**MAGA support for humanitarian work?**​

“There is a concept out there that the Republican side is not as interested [in humanitarian work].” But, he claimed, a survey by Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation earlier this year had shown that “79% of self-identified MAGA Republicans support US engagement overseas.”​

However, the survey had not asked about support for humanitarian work. The “Reagan National Defense Survey” had found that 79% of MAGA Republicans said that the US “should be more engaged and take the lead in international affairs”

As subsequent questions in the survey made clear, this greater engagement and taking the lead in international affairs translated into expanding its military power to be able to fight Russia, China, and use force in Latin America and the Caribbean.

After misusing this survey to indicate that Trump’s core voters support US humanitarian funding, Lindberg went on to clarify that he indeed has “great relations with many members of the Trump administration.”

“President Trump personally called me and asked me to be the US nominee” for WFP’s executive director, he added. “I know that all the way up the chain to the president there are people within the US government that want to support humanitarian work around the world.”​

No commitment to reverse US fund cuts

Nonetheless, he wouldn’t commit to leverage any of this to try to re-secure US funding. Instead, he went on to say, “I look forward to them continuing to play a critical role, but the reality is there are more countries around the world as well … We need to be building that deeper donor partnership.”

However, following in the footsteps of the US, other leading donors have also slashed their funding. Germany, which was the second largest donor in 2024, providing $990.9 million in funds to the WFP,  reduced it to just over $570 million in 2025. This year, it has provided under $331.4 million.

The UK, the third-largest donor in 2024 when it funded over $609.9 million, reduced its donation to $435.16 million in 2025, and to just over USD 220 million so far this year. France in the same period slashed its funding from $196.58 million to USD 113.61 million, to just over $32.5 million.

Nevertheless, Lindberg had found “a bright spot.” The WFP, he said, “has done a remarkable job of increasing private sector engagement. The private sector is now the fifth largest donor.”

However, private sector funding of the WFP has not shown any meaningful increase since 2024, when it was the fifth largest donor, funding $335.63 million. In 2025, its funding dropped to just over $310 million. It went up in 2026 to $326.07 million, but remains below the 2024 level as of November 3.

The rise in the share of WFP budget coming from private sector donations – from 3.44% in 2024 to 4.75% in 2025 to 5.5% in 2026 – has not been driven by an increase in their funding to the WFP. It is rather caused by the decline in the WFP’s total budget from almost $9.6 billion in 2024 to under $5.82 billion this year.

Nonetheless, “I think there is a lot more room to grow on that front,” Lindberg said, at a time when WFP’s funding to Sudan has been halved. In South Sudan, over a million people are at risk of losing assistance. Lack of funds is also forcing the WFP to scale down its reach in Somalia to just 5% of the people facing emergency hunger. It has also been forced to reduce its food assistance to Gaza by a third and to the West Bank by half.

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