Economist and political scientist, born in 1962, is Senior Policy Advisor at the Global Policy Forum Europe (GPF Europe). From October 2004 to June 2025, he was Executive Director of GPF Europe (Bonn). At the same time, he was a long-standing member of the Board of Directors of the Global Policy Forum (New York).
Since 2005, he has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Development and Peace Foundation (sef:).
From 2011 to 2021, he served as coordinator of the global Civil Society Reflection Group on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and co-published the annual Spotlight on Sustainable Development report between 2016 and 2021.
He was long involved with Social Watch, a global network of groups and NGOs working on poverty eradication and social justice. From 2003 to 2009, he was a member of Social Watch's International Coordinating Committee and its co-chair from 2006 to 2009.
Until September 2004, he was a long-standing member of the board of World Economy, Ecology & Development (weed). Between 1997 and 2004, he worked in various capacities for weed, in particular as head of the International Environmental and Development Policy program.
Between 1992 and 1997, he worked as a freelance author and consultant for various German NGOs and foundations, including the Forum on Environment and Development, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and the Development and Peace Foundation. He represented German NGOs at numerous United Nations meetings and conferences. From 1991 to 1992, he worked as a librarian and research assistant for the German Commission for UNESCO.
From 1984 to 1990, he studied economics and political sciences at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (1984-1986) and the Free University of Berlin (1986-1990).
Jens Martens has published more than 100 articles in journals, handbooks, and anthologies, as well as several studies and books on issues of multilateralism, UN reform, and international environmental and development policy.
