About a week before Americans and friends would gather to celebrate Thanksgiving, a convoy of trucks rolled to a stop in the war-ravaged Tigray region of Ethiopia. Humanitarian workers began to unload hundreds of tons of food. Fighting and instability had made the work dangerous, but now sacks heavy with wheat and split peas and vast containers of vegetable oil were being sorted and sent directly to the region’s hungry.
The United Nations’ World Food Programme, the largest humanitarian organization on the planet, had organized the effort. Estimates suggest the deliveries would help 67,000 people.
It was a significant achievement against hunger, yet David Beasley, an American from South Carolina and the agency’s executive director since 2017, finds it hard to take comfort from…
