Biography

Jens Martens has been director of the European office of Global Policy Forum since its foundation in late 2004. He is a member of the Coordinating Committee of Social Watch, a global network of more than 400 NGOs working on social development. He is also a member of the Advisory Council of the Development and Peace Foundation.

Previously, he was a longstanding member of the Executive Board of the German NGO World Economy, Ecology and Development (WEED). From 1997 until 2004 he worked at WEED as Director of its Programmes on International Environment and Development Policy and on Corporate Accountability. He represented WEED at a number of UN conferences.

Prior to joining the staff at WEED he worked as freelance author and advisor for several NGOs and Foundations, among others the German NGO Forum on Environment and Development, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and the Development and Peace Foundation. From 1991 to 1992 he worked as librarian and research fellow at the German Commission for UNESCO in Bonn.

He has published more than 100 articles in journals, newspapers and handbooks, has written several books and studies on development policy and UN reform, and has been co-editor of three books on German UN policy, privatization and corporate accountability.

From 1984 to 1990 he studied economics and political sciences at the University Erlangen-Nuernberg and at the Free University of Berlin, where he graduated with honors in 1991.