Espen Barth Eide is a Norwegian politician and academic, currently a Member of Parliament in Norway and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He previously served as Norway’s Foreign Minister from 2012 to 2013, Minister of Defense from 2011 to 2012, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 2010 to 2011, State Secretary for Defense from 2005 to 2010 and State Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 2000-2001.
From 2014 to august 2017, he served as UN Under-Secretary General and the Secretary General’s Special Adviser on Cyprus, chairing the negotiations aiming at reunification of the divided island. Mr. Eide was Managing Director of the World Economic Forum in Geneva (2014-2016). In his academic career, Mr. Eide was a senior fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) from 1993 to 2000 and from 2002 to 2005 specializing on international security.
Mr. Eide is Vice Chair of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva, member of the Board of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), senior adviser to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington (CSIS), and co-chair of the Council on the Future of International Security at the World Economic Forum.