Peter Eigen


Peter Eigen founded the Advisory Council of Transparency International, a non-governmental organization promoting transparency and accountability in international development since 1993. Headquartered in Berlin, TI supports National Chapters in more than 90 countries.

Career

Early career

A lawyer by training, Eigen has worked in economic development for 25 years, mainly as a World Bank manager of programmes in Africa and Latin America. Under Ford Foundation sponsorship, he provided legal and technical assistance to the governments of Botswana and Namibia, and taught law at the universities of Frankfurt and Georgetown.

Transparency International

From 1993 to 2005, Eigen served as chairman of Transparency International. He has since been chairing the organization's Advisory Council.
In September 2001, Eigen joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as Visiting Scholar while teaching at Johns Hopkins University/ SAIS. He also joined the Board of The Centre for International Environmental Law and since 2002, has been teaching as an Honorary Professor of Political Science of the Freie Universität, Berlin. In 2005, Eigen chaired the International Advisory Group of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and became Chair of EITI in 2006.
In 2000, he received the award of Honorary Doctor of the Open University, UK and in 2004, received the Readers Digest Award "European of the Year 2004".
From 1988 to 1991 he was the Director of the Regional Mission for Eastern Africa of the World Bank, and from 1999 to 2001, Eigen was a faculty member of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Eigen is a member of the Africa Progress Panel, a group of ten distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa. As a Panel Member he facilitates coalition building to leverage and broker knowledge, and convenes decision-makers to influence policy for lasting change in Africa.
In 2007 Peter Eigen, together with Burkhard Gnärig, founded the Berlin Civil Society Center, and is currently the organisation's Chair.
From April 2014 to October 2019 he served as Founding Chair of the Fisheries Transparency Initiative which he was instrumental in founding.

Personal life

In 2004 Eigen married Gesine Schwan, the social–democrat candidate for the federal presidential elections in Germany in 2004 and 2009.