Jocelyn Brown Hall

Jocelyn Brown Hall is the Director of FAO’s Liaison Office for North America based in Washington, D.C. She started this position in June 2021. In this role, she interacts with FAO’s North American governments, private sector, universities to advance global food security worldwide. 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, trade, and animal and plant health, among other topics. She also served as the FAO Representative for Ghana and the acting coordinator for FAO’s subregional office for Southern Africa.

Prior to joining FAO, Brown Hall was with the US Department of Agriculture for 23 years. Her last position at USDA was a Deputy Administrator in the Foreign Agricultural Service, where she led USDA’s food and technical assistance programs in low- and middle-income countries. During her tenure, she was involved in or lead issues as diverse as food security policy post-earthquake in Haiti in 2011, African Growth and Opportunity Act renewals, U.S. government response to the global avian influenza outbreak and bilateral agriculture trade issues with Canada, Central America, Mexico and ASEAN countries.

Brown Hall began her agriculture career teaching English at an agricultural university in Peshawar, Pakistan while serving in the Peace Corps. 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.