Espen Barth Eide, a the now foreign minister of Norway, was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in August 2014 as his Special Advisor on Cyprus.
He chaired the reunification negotiations between President Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek Cypriot leader, and Mustafa Akinci, the Turkish Cypriot leader.
A member of Norway’s Labour Party, Barth was closely involved with a range of Norwegian-supported peace and reconciliation efforts globally. He was Norway’s defence minister from 2011-2012 and foreign minister from 2012-2013.
He has also enjoyed a successful academic career in political science, holding a higher degree in the subject from the University of Oslo. He has worked as a senior researcher and research director at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, specialising in peacekeeping and peace-building and regional and global security issues.
He is vice-chair of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva and works as a special adviser to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. From 2014 to mid-2016 he was managing director of the World Economic Forum in Geneva.