David Joslyn
Former Nonresident Senior Fellow, Global Food and Agriculture
About David Joslyn
David Joslyn is a nonresident senior fellow of global food and agriculture at the Council, with an expertise in Latin America. He has over 30 years of international development experience with expertise in: designing, managing, and monitoring programs in rural and agriculture sector development; emergency and disaster relief and reconstruction; environment sector institution strengthening; and natural resources management. His impressive career includes senior technical and management positions with USAID, Peace Corps, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), and the private sector consulting firm of International Resources Group (IRG).
With the Peace Corps, Joslyn was a volunteer in Chile, deputy country director in Chile, and country director in Ecuador. With USAID, he served as chief of the forestry division in Washington, rural development officer for Central American regional programs based in Costa Rica, director of the Food for Peace program (based in Washington, DC), and alternate US permanent representative to the UN Agencies in Rome. In this latter position, as the key US liaison with the World Food Program in Rome, he served as chairman of the WFP governing board and guided US government resources to the most critical emergencies and refugee situations throughout the world. Joslyn worked closely with the US Department of State, USAID, and the US Forest Service to develop the US government position for several key international environmental negotiations, including a lead role on the US negotiating team for forestry issues at the UNCED Preparatory Committee meetings, and provision of technical analyses and reporting on ongoing multilateral deliberations on the Tropical Forestry Action Plan and an International Convention on Forests.
As deputy director general of IICA, Joslyn led the development of an environmental development strategy for that institution to be applied throughout the Americas, including a series of joint field programs with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to strengthen national institutions responsible for environmental policy. As corporate vice president with IRG, he managed a $30 million portfolio of environmental policy and institution-building projects carried out in all regions of the world, and established a very successful disaster relief and reconstruction practice at the firm.