TGC Coordination Team

Robert Patterson

Robert Patterson is Senior Liaison Officer of the North American Liaison Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).  He transferred to Washington D.C. to assume this post in January 1998.

Together with the Director of the Liaison Office, Mr. Patterson coordinates FAO’s activities in the North American region.  The Liaison Office represents the Organization before the national governments of the United States and Canada, international institutions located in North America such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, the private sector and non-governmental organizations across the continent.  Mr. Patterson has served FAO since 1982.  For seven years, based in FAO’s Rome Headquarters, he managed FAO’s network of country offices in Africa and was the focal point for field staff security. Mr. Patterson played a central role in FAO’s massive decentralization exercise, heightening use of developing country national capacities and effecting budgetary savings for the Organization. 

Prior to serving in Rome, he was active in FAO’s country offices in the Eastern Caribbean and West Africa, working on program development and evaluation.  Before joining FAO, Mr. Patterson worked for two years in Rwanda with the United Nations Development Program.  Currently, Mr. Patterson is Secretary to FAO’s Consultative Sub-Committee on Surplus Disposal. Mr. Patterson holds an M.A. from the School of International Affairs in Ottawa, and a B.A. from the University of Guelph, in Canada.  He was born and raised on a dairy farm in western Quebec.