Patrice Talla Takoukam

Regional Director for Southern Africa
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation
Zimbabwe

Oct 4, 2021

Patrice Talla is a lawyer and executive advancing food security and sustainable agriculture efforts in Southern Africa. He has served at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) since 2010, first as a Legal Officer, then as a Representative in Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius, and Seychelles, and now as the Sub-Regional Coordinator for Southern Africa and Representative in Zimbabwe, Eswatini, and Lesotho. Previously, he was a Legal Counsel at the World Bank, advising on forestry, fisheries, and natural resources law and policy. His academic path to this work includes bachelor’s and masters’ degrees in law from the University of Reims and a PhD in international environmental law from the University of Limoges. Patrice traces his interest in the field to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, which motivated him to study the evolution of multilateral environmental agreements in graduate school.

This experience proved useful at FAO, where Patrice played an instrumental role in the drafting and negotiations for the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT).  “Land tenure is the most sensitive subject—the potential for conflict is very high, both domestically and between countries,” he says, which is why he considered potential tenure conflicts while drafting laws as well as the ways that the laws could drive conflict. To address these risks in the development of the VGGT, the team pursued an inclusive process, mapping the various stakeholders and their interests to identify potential conflicts. The team spent two years on stakeholder consultations, which he underscores are crucial to maximize parties’ willingness to implement any agreement. After the VGGT was internationally agreed upon, Patrice supported developing countries in implementing the framework. He drafted laws for countries across Africa, South America, and Asia, on forestry, fisheries and working to adapt the Guidelines to the specific stakeholders and capacities of particular countries.

Patrice’s current work focuses on adapting agriculture and food security in Southern Africa to the devastating realities of climate change. Increasingly, countries in the region—particularly island states such as Comoros, Madagascar, Seychelles, and Mauritius—have faced a series of deadly cyclones and droughts, causing severe humanitarian suffering and wiping out entire harvests. Now in a more managerial role, Patrice oversees a climate-smart agriculture program that has reached millions of farmers in 15 countries with guidance on adapting their planting and irrigation practices to climate-driven resource strains. The programming is directly needed in the region, where a majority of the population earns their primary incomes from agriculture. To address these livelihood needs — and avert the resource conflicts that they can spark — the program works to train farmers, convince them of the value of switching to more resilient crops, and demonstrates how to grow and cook these plants. Patrice sees a need for more research on climate-smart crops and says the FAO program works to build this research capacity locally so that “countries can do their own research.”

Strengthening local capacities is a commitment Patrice brings to the broader environmental peacebuilding community, including through his role on the Environmental Peacebuilding Association’s Board of Directors. He hopes to expand partnerships between the Association and local leaders to empower grassroots communities with environmental knowledge that can help them better defend their rights and livelihoods.