Jocelyn Brown Hall

Director of FAO North America

Jocelyn Brown Hall is the Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Liaison Office for North America based in Washington, DC. Prior to this role she served as the Deputy Regional Representative for the FAO Regional Office for Africa, where she oversaw 47 FAO country offices and guided strategy and communications around food security, agriculture, climate change, agrifood trade, animal and plant health, among other topics. She has also served as the FAO Representative for Ghana, where she worked with ministries of agriculture, fisheries, social protection and trade on advancing issues such as healthy school meals, rehabilitating lands contaminated by illegal mining, sustainable aquaculture and fish smoking, and digitalization of agriculture data.

Before joining FAO, Jocelyn was Deputy Administrator in the Foreign Agricultural Service, where she led the USDA’s USD $2 billion food and technical assistance programs in low- and middle-income countries. She oversaw the world;s largest international school meals program, serving over 4 million school children globally, and numerous fellowship programs that served tens and thousands of agriculturalists.

She also served as the lead expert on USDA’s technical relationship with international organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture, and various international research centers.