Laurent Thomas oversees the work of FAO in Decentralized Offices, the Organization’s Human Resources and Financial Management, Administration, and the Logistics Services. He also oversees FAO’s Emergency and Resilience activities, and supports the oversight of FAO’s Investment Centre, its Partnerships and UN Collaboration, and the Project Support activities.

Prior to this, he led the Organization’s Technical Cooperation and Programme Management Department. In this role, he was responsible for overseeing the Senior Directors’ team in charge of Strategic Programmes Leadership; programming investment in food security, agriculture and rural development; preparing for and responding to food and agriculture threats and crisis; mobilizing resources including through South-South Cooperation partnerships; and administrating FAO’s Technical Cooperation Programme.

He is an agro-economist by training. Throughout his career, he has worked on the challenges of food security and agrifood systems transformation. Prior to joining FAO headquarters, he worked for over a decade in developing countries on farming systems research and agriculture extension.