Jan Egeland is Director General of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. He was the UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and its emergency relief coordinator from August 2003 to December 2006. From 1999 to 2002, he was the UN secretary-generalÕs special envoy for war-torn Colombia. As state secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs he was initiator of the Norwegian channel between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that led to the Oslo Accord in 1993. Egeland lives in Oslo, Norway, and is frequently in the United States.