Topic: Jacques Diouf

Jacques Diouf (born 1 August 1938) is a Senegalese diplomat with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. He has served as Director-General of FAO since replacing Edouard Saouma of Lebanon in January 1994.

Diouf attended primary and secondary school in his native Saint-Louis, Senegal. He then traveled to France, where he earned a bachelor of science in Agriculture from the Ecole nationale d'agriculture, Grignon-Paris Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon, a Master of Science in Tropical Agronomy from the Ecole nationale d'application d'agronomie tropicale, Nogent-Paris (France), Doctor of Philosophy in Social Sciences of the Rural Sector from the (Agricultural Economics) from the Faculté de droit et de sciences économiques, Panthéon - Sorbonne, Paris.

Beginning in 1963 at the age of 25 , Diouf was the Director of the European Office and the Agricultural Program of the Marketing Board (Paris/Dakar). Leaving that position in 1964, Diouf became the Director of the African Groundnut Council based in Nigeria from 1965 to 1971. From 1971 to 1977 Diouf was the Executive Secretary of the newly created West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA) (now Africa Rice Center). Leaving WARDA in 1978, Diouf became the Secretary of State for Science and Technology of the government of Senegal under both Léopold Sédar Senghor and his successor Abdou Diouf until 1983. In that year he became a member of the parliament of Senegal and the Senegambian Confederation. In Senegal, he was chairman of the foreign relations committee. From 1985 to 1990, Diouf was the Secretary-General of the Central Bank for West African States, which is based in Dakar. Subsequently he was the Senegalese Ambassador to the United Nations from 1991 to 1993.