Kai Eide

Kai Eide was Special Representative for the UN Secretary-General in Afghanistan March 2008 to March 2010.  Most recently, he is the author of “Power Struggle Over Afghanistan” (2010). Prior to his assignment to Afghanistan, he was the political director of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, appointed in October 2006. Eide also served as Norwegian Permanent Representative to NATO from 2002 to 2006–overall his third term at NATO. He was Deputy Permanent Representative of Norway (1991–1993) and First Secretary of the Norwegian Delegation.

Prior to this experience, he served as deputy director of the Private Office of Secretaries General Lord Carrington and Manfred Wörner from 1984 to 1989. In addition to his broad NATO experience, Eide spent a significant part of his diplomatic career in the OSCE and CSCE, starting from the early phases of Helsinki Process in the 1970s. He served as Norwegian Ambassador to the OSCE from 1998 to 2002, including as chairman of the OSCE Permanent Council in 1999. Eide played instrumental roles in both the Balkans and the Middle East, serving as Special Envoy of UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, in the Balkans and as co-author to the Mitchell Report on the Palestinian Intifada in 2000. His two reports on the Balkans – in 2004 and 2005 – formed the basis for the policy adopted by the UN Security Council to start the process of determining Kosovo’s final status. Eide was the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1997–98 and deputy UN representative to the International Conference on Former Yugoslavia (ICFY) during the Balkan War in 1994 and 1995. In 1989 and 1990, Eide was the State Secretary responsible for foreign and security policies in the Office of the Norwegian Prime Minister. He also served as special adviser to the CEO of the Norwegian oil company STATOIL before reentering the Norwegian Foreign Service.

Eide was in residence with the Future of Diplomacy Project in April, 2011. During this time he held lectures on the international community's role in Afghanistan at the Harvard Kennedy School.