A Senior-level international civil servant with over 30 years of experience and expertise in strategic management and promoting global international development programmes. Mr. Serge Raymond Nakouzi, Lebanese/Italian national, assumed his position as FAO Deputy Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa as of 1 March 2019. He concurrently serves as Subregional Coordination for the Mashreq subregion and in June-September 2019, he served as FAO Representative ad interim to Egypt.

Mr Nakouzi possesses extensive policy and operational experience in international development activities focussed on the food security, environmental sustainability, peace and human security nexus at the global, regional and country levels. He has worked extensively with Member States, partnering financial institutions as well as a broad spectrum of stakeholders to secure the desired impact from the implementation of major integrated strategic programmes in the aforementioned areas, including notably across the African continent, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Prior to taking up his current position, he served as the Deputy Regional Representative for Africa (2017-2019) and as Subregional Coordinator for West Africa as well as FAO Representative ad interim in Benin and Togo. He has held over the years several senior-level positions, comprising those of FAO Representative to the Islamic Republic of Iran and to the Economic Cooperation Organization/ECO (2014-2017) and Senior Adviser on Strategic Management and Regional Oversight at the Regional Office for the Near East and North Africa (2013-2014). In addition, he was appointed a Member of the Cabinet in the administrations of two FAO DirectorsGeneral (Messrs Saouma and Diouf) covering a broad range of portfolios over a period of eight years and was nominated Deputy Executive Coordinator of Operations for the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome. Other positions held include Chief of Human Resources Strategy, Policy and Planning and Deputy Director of the Human Resources Management Division.

Mr Nakouzi has also worked extensively on partnerships and on inter-agency matters within the UN system, serving in this connection as Liaison Officer in the FAO Office for External Relations at headquarters as well as the FAO Liaison Office with the United Nations in New York.

During his career, Mr. Nakouzi was appointed to numerous senior positions (e.g. as Chairman, Work stream Leader and High-level Expert) within the United Nations inter-agency global, regional as well as country level commissions, committees, technical working groups and task forces dealing with operations, programme coordination and development assistance frameworks.

As Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, he is specialised in human resources management and leading transformational change programmes aimed at reinforcing corporate performance delivery through the establishment of ‘fit for purpose’ organizational designs conducive to supporting the strategical repositioning of organisations, the strengthening of corporate core competence capabilities and optimising workforce productivity.

Mr. Nakouzi holds an M.Sc. in Major Programme Management and a Master’s level Postgraduate Diploma in Organizational Leadership (DOL) from the University of Oxford, St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, United Kingdom, as well as a B.A. in Political Science (minor Economics) from Seattle University, Seattle, USA. He is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), London, United Kingdom and a Fellow of the Global Strategic Management Forum, London, United Kingdom.