In February 2022, he was appointed as the Food and Agriculture Organization Representative ad interim to Barbados, currently based in Bridgetown. From 2018 to 2019, he was also Representative a.i. to Jamaica, Belize, and The Bahamas, based in Kingston. He joined the UN family in September 2018, and has since then performed as the Trade and Markets Officer for the Caribbean, leading the organization’s value chain development program in the region.

His focus is on supporting the development of more competitive and resilient agricultural value chains across the Caribbean and promoting multi-stakeholder collaboration and public-private partnerships, to help drive agricultural industries and agribusiness, in a more efficient and inclusive way.

Before joining the FAO, he worked as Senior Agricultural Policy and Value Chains Coordinator and Caribbean Programme Coordinator, at the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Development CTA-ACP/EU Cotonou Agreement (2014-2017). He designed and managed CTA’s Business Plan for the Caribbean and coordinated the global knowledge management component of an Agricultural Policy Program for Caribbean and Pacific countries.

While at Oxfam Great Britain (2002-2008) he served as a Regional Policy Coordinator and Policy and Practice Change Manager for Rural Livelihoods in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. He participated actively in global campaigns to make trade fair; coordinated Oxfam’s support to the joint Oxfam International program in Cuba; and represented the organization as a member of the Steering Committee and Technical Team of the Sustainable Food Lab, a global multistakeholder coalition to help build know-how, tools and partnerships for sustainable farming and supply chains of the future.

Dr Smith has worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for over 14 years, leading programme development and implementation in several countries of the Caribbean, engaging with governments and other stakeholders in a wide range of areas covered by the Organization and in alignment with national and regional priorities. Dr Smith has also worked at the sub-regional and regional level of the FAO, developing Country Programming Frameworks and supporting the design of FAO’s Caribbean sub-regional priorities, and worked on initiatives to enhance alignment and synergies between the Caribbean and Latin American work programme.

Dr Smith is committed to promoting sustainable approaches to development, recognizing and respecting the views and aspirations of all stakeholders (especially the voiceless and most vulnerable) in the development process. Her abiding interest is to continue active engagement in development, ensuring that equity and social justice inform choices and responses. She is confident that people have within themselves an often unexplored capacity for doing better.

He joined FAO in 2000, where he has worked in 15 countries in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. His highlighted positions include Programme Coordinator in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Uganda, Regional Coordinator for Agricultural Risk Management in Latin America and the Caribbean (2010-13) and Africa (2013-19).

Prior to his appointment as FAO Representative in Venezuela in October 2020, he had assumed functions as FAO Representative a.i. in 6 countries.