AMNA NAWAZ: The United Nations recently announced a new executive director for the World Food Program, who is by tradition nominated by the U.S.

Luke Lindberg was a Trump administration Agriculture Department official, and he inherits one of the U.N.

's toughest jobs, made tougher seemingly every year by wars and climate change.

Hundreds of millions around the world go hungry every day, and feeding as many as possible is a monumental task.

The man serving as the acting director of the WFP spoke recently from the U.N.

General Assembly with our Nick Schifrin.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The World Food Program is the world's largest humanitarian agency, and it is facing challenges that are only increasing across the globe.

Some 266 million people face acute food insecurity because of conflict, weather and economic hardship.

WFP is providing assistance to more than 100 million people across 83 countries, but faces serious funding shortfalls, just like much of the humanitarian world.

The WFP's acting director is Carl Skau.

And he joins me now from New York.

Thanks very much.

Welcome to the "News Hour."

Let me start where the world's largest humanitarian and food crisis is, which is in Sudan.

Nearly 20 million people face acute hunger there.

There's famine in some areas.

We're, of course, in the fourth year of civil war in Sudan, but how much is the crisis still due to the difficulty of exporting out of the Strait of Hormuz because of the Iran war?

CARL SKAU, Acting Executive Director, World Food Program: Well, basically, everything we see playing out at the global level in terms of conflict, these disruptions to maritime trade and climate change, is playing out in Sudan.

I was just there before coming to New York with my frontline teams.

I was in El Obeid in Kordofan, which is now the epicenter of the fighting, saw hundreds of women arriving with their children from villages that had been destroyed only a few days before.

So the war rages on there, and displacements continue.

But on the markets in Khartoum and elsewhere, also prices are coming up because of the disruptions to maritime trade.

I mean, Sudan is on the Red Sea, and now the escalation in Yemen is causing big issues for shipments to come in.

NICK SCHIFRIN: You mentioned you recently visited some of the communities that have been hardest hit, especially by violence committed by the Rapid Support Forces, the anti-government militia there.

Tell us about some of the victims of that violence.

Who did you meet?

What did they tell you?

CARL SKAU: Well, I went to El Fasher, which is this city that last year was besieged for 18 months.

The people there suffered through terrible atrocities, unspeakable atrocities.

Famine was confirmed last year.

And when I visited, it's a completely destroyed city.

You drove street after street was empty and destroyed homes, very few people, very little economic activity, a couple of stands, no markets.

There was this exodus of hundreds of thousands of people towards the end of last year.

They are now caught in that massive -- in the camp of displaced people, mostly women and children, now about 960,000 of them, living in this ocean of grass huts.

There are no basic services, no health care, no education, no water and sanitation.

And so we failed them last year of not protecting them against these atrocities, and we are, frankly, failing them again by not being able to provide not even the basics that they need to survive.

NICK SCHIFRIN: We have seen funding crises all over the world for humanitarian agencies, not only in Sudan, not only in WFP.

The executive director, Cindy McCain, who just left, told me earlier this year that the U.S.

funding cuts could cause an additional 58 million people to face starvation.

Is that still the impact of the cuts to USAID some 18 months after they were made?

CARL SKAU: Well, it's not only the U.S.

I mean, there are cuts across.

WFP lost about 40 percent of its budget from '24 into '25.

So it's fundamentally inadequate.

We have about half of the money that we have asked for, but it's also very uneven.

Some contexts, like Afghanistan, like Somalia, it's severely underfunded.

And there we're moving in Somalia's case towards a famine-like situation.

In Afghanistan, we have probably the worst malnutrition crisis in the world.

NICK SCHIFRIN: One of the places where it seems like you are getting a more generous response from the international community is Nepal, which, of course, is still grappling with the devastating impacts of last month's floods.

You have said that this is a case where the international community response has been timely and generous.

How so?

And why is that the case in Nepal?

CARL SKAU: Well, there was a lot of attention.

I mean, it was dramatic scenes, of course, and pictures that came out of Nepal.

And so there was expression of solidarity coming from different sides.

And we were able to help the Nepalese government to respond.

We have been providing these specialized trucks that can make it through even if their -- the roads have been destroyed.

We have also supported with helicopter capacity.

And we have now also deployed a new capacity with drones, where we are bringing food and other commodities.

I think it's an example of where WFP has stepped in, in support of government, providing that logistics capacity to be able to reach those who have been closed off by this crisis.

NICK SCHIFRIN: You visited Gaza earlier this year.

And there are new findings that show modest, but very fragile improvements in Gaza in food security and child nutrition.

But 1.4 million people -- that's more than two-thirds or so of Gaza -- still face crisis hunger levels.

What happens to Gaza if assistance isn't increased?

CARL SKAU: I think it's important to say that there has been progress on the food security, and -- but that is only thanks to the fact that WFP has been able to deliver to the entire population basically every month since the cease-fire started.

But, indeed, this is fragile.

I mean, should we not have the funding to continue -- and, in October, actually, we are hitting a cliff, where we might need to have to cut to about half the population, 1 or 1.1 million people.

And that is going to quickly then reverse these gains on food security.

But I think, even more importantly, other sectors, like water sanitation, shelter, health care, has not seen the same progress.

And so life in Gaza is absolutely brutal still.

We need to move forward with early recovery.

Even if the political and security processes are stuck, we need to be able to provide for more dignified life.

NICK SCHIFRIN: I wonder what your message is to the world, frankly, that has not stepped up the way it needs to about why food security is so important.

CARL SKAU: Frankly, it's unacceptable that children go to bed hungry, and I think there is broad agreement about this.

But it's also about stability and security.

Food security is national security.

When people face hunger, they have three options, basically, starve, migrate or rebel.

And so while WFP is engaged in this for the humanitarian cause, there is clearly also a case of self-interest.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Carl Skau, the acting director of the World Food Program, thank you very much.

CARL SKAU: Thank you.