American-Scandinavian Foundation invites you to an online discussion with Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council — the largest Scandinavian humanitarian NGO and one of the largest in the world. With ASF President Edward Gallagher as moderator, Mr. Egeland, recipient of the ASF Medal for Distinguished Public Service, will discuss his work with the NRC, the global coronavirus challenge for refuges and war victims, the hopes that the current situation could lead to ceasefires and bridge-building across divides, and how 15,000 field workers are able to remain and deliver to the vulnerable in some of the worst war zones of the planet. He will also discuss racial and economic inequalities from a global perspective.
Please send audience questions ahead of the discussion to info@amscan.org. Select questions will be chosen for a Q&A following the conversation. Registration is required; please sign up at the link above.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jan Egeland has been the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council since August 2013, a role which oversees the work of the largest Scandinavian humanitarian organisation in more than 30 countries affected by conflict and disaster. An ASF Fellow, he received a grant from ASF in 1982 to study International Law at UC Berkeley, and in 2007, he was the recipient of the ASF Award for Distinguished Public Service
In 2015 he was appointed in a second role by former UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, as Special Adviser to the UN Special Envoy for Syria. Within this position he chaired the 23 nation humanitarian task force on access to Syrian civilians. He stepped down from this role on 1 December 2018.
From 2011 to 2013 Jan Egeland served as the European Director at Human Rights Watch. He was appointed Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General for Conflict Prevention and Resolution from 2006 and 2008.
Prior to that, Jan Egeland was UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator from 2003 to 2006. In that role he helped reform the global humanitarian response system and organized the international response to the Asian Tsunami, and crises from Darfur to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Lebanon.
In 2006, Time magazine named Jan Egeland one of the “100 People Who Shape Our World.”
He served as Director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs from 2007 to 2011. He was the UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Colombia from 1999 to 2001, where he led shuttle diplomacy efforts between armed groups and the government.
The Curtis L. Carlson Distinguished Lecture series was created by the Carlson Family Foundation to support public discourse on issues and topics of particular relevance to the people of the United States and the Nordic nations.