Christophe Tocco currently serves as the Acting Assistant to the Administrator in the Bureau for Planning, Learning and Resource Management (PLR). Prior to this role, Mr. Tocco served as the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator in PLR where he oversaw the Office of Policy Implementation and Analytics and the Program Office. He also brings over 25 years of experience in managing and executing international development and humanitarian programs throughout Africa, including in his role as USAID Mission Director in the DRC, one of the U.S. Government’s priority countries for foreign assistance in Africa. He managed a staff of over 160 and annual appropriations in excess of $500 million including development, emergency food, and non-food assistance. He also managed the DRC’s regional operating unit, which includes the longstanding, six-country Central African Regional Program for the Environment, and programming in the Central African Republic and Republic of Congo.
Mr. Tocco previously served as the U.S. Government Representative to the Development Assistance Committee (DAC). The DAC is attached to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and is the pre-eminent forum where the major donors of the world - 32 formal member countries and 15 other key multilateral and bilateral providers of development assistance - work together to ensure development cooperation is effective. DAC members contribute over 80% of the world’s Official Development Assistance (ODA). Mr. Tocco was the U.S. negotiator at the DAC for 21 U.S. government agencies that program foreign assistance. He co-led peer reviews of other countries’ development systems and brought USAID's expertise to bear in all DAC work streams.
As USAID Senegal’s Deputy Regional Director, Mr. Tocco initiated, developed, and led the Sahel Joint Planning Cell (JPC). The Sahel JPC represented a departure from the “business as usual” divide between humanitarian and development programming. The JPC forged an innovative approach that combined the planning and development of all resources implemented through USAID staff in Niger, Senegal, and Ghana’s West Africa Mission into a systematic approach to build the resilience of the most vulnerable populations. He also managed bilateral programs and staff in Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Cape Verde, the Gambia, and Guinea Bissau.
Mr. Tocco graduated magna cum laude from the University of California at Los Angeles where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics. He also holds a Master of Science degree in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from HEC. Mr. Tocco regularly draws on his experiences living and working in countries such as Morocco, Rwanda, Jordan, Senegal, and the DRC as well as his fluency speaking French, Spanish, Moroccan and standard Arabic. Mr. Tocco was a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Morocco focused on health. He also worked for USAID as an Education Officer in Morocco and as a Supervisory Program Officer in charge of strategy, project design, monitoring, and budgeting and program oversight for USAID in Rwanda and Senegal.
Mr. Tocco is married with three children and grew up in San Pedro, California.