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Jan Egeland (born 1957) is a Norwegian citizen who is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. He was appointed to this position in June 2003 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and succeeded Kenzo Oshima. Egeland was previously Secretary-General of the Norwegian Red Cross and from 1998 to 2002 was the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on Colombia. From 1990 to 1997 he was the State Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is married with two daughters.
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Egeland was partially responsible for creating the "Norwegian channel" between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel that led to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. He led facilitation of the cease-fire agreement between the government of Guatemala and the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) rebels in 1996, and led the Norwegian delegation to the Oslo conference that ratified the Ottawa treaty banning landmines in 1997. Prior to 1990, his positions included International Department Director for the Norwegian Red Cross, Head of Development Studies at the Henry Dunant Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, and international news reporter for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. He has been Chair of Amnesty International-Norway and Vice-Chair of the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International.
He is currently head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). As part of his responsibilities he travels extensively to evaluate humanitarian disasters, including the ethnic cleansing of Darfur, Sudan and Lord's Resistance Army insurgency of northern Uganda.
US controversy
On December 27, 2004, during the initial phase of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake relief effort, Egeland made a statement that portrayed wealthy Western countries as being "stingy" in humanitarian effort. Generally taken as a criticism of the United States, the remark echoed in media coverage for several days and drew vociferous opposition from the United States government. Egeland's view was later supported by the New York Times, who said, "We beg to differ. Mr Egeland was right on target." [1] (http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7208747).
Egeland's exact quote was, "Christmastime should remind many Western countries how rich we have become, and if actually the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2% of their gross national income, I think that is stingy, really."
Since Egeland's public observation, the United States has been very visible in promoting its disaster aid, and may have increased the amount it would otherwise have pledged in an attempt to limit the public relations damage. Many other nations have joined in (some, such as Australia and Germany, topping the United States in giving). The specialized aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières stated that they had been inundated with donations, were fully funded to manage any effort they could provide in the region, and actually requested no more be sent.
Egeland was quoted as saying that the donations were so large and were coming in so fast that "we really have to confirm that we heard right, that the number of zeroes was right."
When reviewing the tangible, if non-monetary, assistance of the militaries of the United States, Australia, and other nations in providing disaster relief, Egeland remarked, "Those helicopters are worth their weight in gold now."
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