Poul Engberg-Pedersen (52) was today appointed as Director General of the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation (Norad) by the Council of State.Mr Engberg-Pedersen is a Danish national. He has a PhD in Economic Planning and Political Science from the University of Roskilde, and has nearly 30 years’ international development experience from around 25 developing countries.

Mr Engberg-Pedersen combines extensive expertise in international development matters with long-standing leadership experience. For eight years he was managing director of the Centre for Development Research in Copenhagen, and he was in charge of international operations at the Danish consultancy firm Cowi Consult for several years. He also has experience from multilateral organisations. He has worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) regional office in Addis Ababa, and for the last three years has worked for the World Bank. He is regarded as an expert in the areas of governance, development assistance and capacity building in Africa.

Alongside these positions, Mr Engberg-Pedersen has also held various honorary positions in a number of Danish, Norwegian and international institutions and organisations in the field of international development, and he has sat on international committees set up to evaluate assistance programmes, for example for UNICEF, UNDP, UNIDO, the IMO, the Danish International Development Agency, the Research Council of Norway and the Southern African Development Co-ordination Committee.

- I am delighted that Poul Engberg-Pedersen has been appointed as the new Director General of the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation, said International Development Minister Hilde F. Johnson. - His expertise and leadership experience, together with his detailed knowledge of international development issues and most of the countries and organisations that are relevant to Norway in terms of development co-operation are a perfect match for the requirements of the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation. The Agency has been through a tough restructuring process and now has an excellent starting point to consolidate and further develop its role as a centre of expertise.

Mr Engberg-Pedersen will be in Oslo next week from 25 to 26/27 August.

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