Jocelyn Brown Hall

Jocelyn Brown Hall is the Director of FAO’s Liaison Office for North America based in Washington, D.C. a. She started this position in June 2021.

Brown Hall comes from her previous position as the Deputy Regional Representative for FAO’s Regional Office for Africa based in Accra, Ghana, where she served from 2019-2021. In this capacity, Brown Hall oversaw 47 FAO country offices in Africa and guided their strategy and communications around food security, agriculture, climate change, agri-food trade, and animal and plant health, among other topics. She also served as the FAO Representative for Ghana and 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, digitalization of agriculture data, and resource mobilization.

Prior to joining FAO, Brown Hall was with the US Department of Agriculture. During her term at USDA, she was appointed Deputy Administrator in the Foreign Agricultural Service, where she led the USDA’s US $2 Billion food and technical assistance programs in low- and middle-income countries. She joined USDA in 1998 in the Foreign Agricultural Service, where she coordinated USDA’s international development and training programs, where she was the lead expert on USDA’s technical relationship with international organizations, such as the FAO, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture, and various international research centers.

Brown Hall began her career teaching English at an agricultural university in Peshawar, Pakistan while serving in the Peace Corps. She then ran the largest income generation program for Afghan women refugees in Pakistan for Save the Children, until she was evacuated from that country during the first Gulf War.

Brown Hall holds a master’s degree in Business Administration in International Business and Development from the George Washington University and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in American Literature.