Jozimo Santos Rocha serves as Service Chief for the Asia and the Pacific Service at the FAO Investment Centre, where he leads multidisciplinary teams delivering the Centre’s full spectrum of investment support, from upstream analytics and sector diagnostics to investment design and implementation support across agrifood systems. With over 20 years of experience across Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, he has led or contributed to more than USD 1.5 billion in investment programmes in over 35 countries. An agricultural economist by training, he has built his leadership on strong technical foundations and long-standing partnerships with the World Bank, GAFSP, IFAD, EBRD, ADB, AfDB, MCC, and USAID.
He brings deep expertise in agribusiness and agrifood value chains, sector strategy and policy formulation, economic analysis, and national agricultural investment frameworks. He is recognized for translating complex policy and financing challenges into bankable, scalable solutions while fostering collaboration among governments, IFIs, and private investors.
He holds a PhD in Development Economics from Wageningen University and an MS in Agricultural Economics from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.