Jan Pronk

Jan Pronk

"After having finished my study economics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam I became research assistant of Prof. Jan Tinbergen at the same university. In the seventies I became a politician: member of parliament for the Social-Democratic Party (Partij van de Arbeid) and Minister for Development Cooperation. In the first half of the eighties I worked as an international civil servant for the United Nations (UNCTAD) in Geneva.

"Thereafter I returned to Dutch politics and became again Minister for Development Cooperation and later Minister of Environment. I left Dutch politics in 2002 and was appointed as Professor at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS - www.iss.nl) in The Hague. From mid 2004 until the end of 2006 I have lived in Khartoum as the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations in Sudan, where I was leading the UN peace keeping operation (UNMIS) See: www.unmis.org...

"I am married to Tineke Zuurmond."

"In 1971, he took up politics and has since served as the Minister of Development Cooperation (1973-1977, 1989-1994, 1994-1998) and as Minister of Housing and Environment (1998-2002). In the meantime, he was Professor of Theory and Practice of Policy Making at University of Amsterdam (1988-1989).

"Among other positions, Mr Pronk served as Deputy Governor of the World Bank (1973-1977, 1989-1998), as Member of the Development Committee of the same institution (1974-1977, 1989-1998), as Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (1980-1986), as Co-Chairman of the Global Coalition for Africa (1991-1998) and as Chairman of the 6th Conference of Parties of the UN Convention on Climate Change (2000-2001).

"He was Special Envoy of the Secretary General of UN for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2001-2003), Chairman of the Board of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) (2002-2004), Chairman of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) (2003-2004), Chairman of the Federation of Refugee Organisations in the Netherlands (VON), (2003-2004) and Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations in Sudan, Khartoum, were he led the UN peace keeping operation (UNMIS) (2004-2006)."


 * Co-chair, Global Coalition for Africa
 * Former Trustee (2003-4), International Alert
 * Governing Council, Interpeace
 * Advisory Board, Transnational Institute
 * Ex Officio Member, Independent Commission on International Development Issues
 * Trustee and Advisor, Spanda Foundation