Jan Egeland is Director General of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

He was the UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator from August 2003 to December 2006. From 1999 to 2002, he was the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for war-torn Columbia.

As State Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1990-97) he was initiator of the Norwegian channel between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation that led to the Oslo Accord in 1993.