Secretary General of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict
Paul van Tongeren is the Secretary General of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), a worldwide civil society-led network to build a new international consensus on peace building and the prevention of violent conflict. Under his leadership, GPPAC organised the first international civil society conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, bringing together a thousand participants from around the world in 2005. At this conference the Global Action Agenda for the Prevention of Violent Conflict was launched.
In 1997 he founded the European Centre for Conflict Prevention (ECCP) and proceeded to serve as its Executive Director for ten years.
Over a period of forty years he initiated and co-established several programs, international networks and NGOs in the field of fair trade, development, environment, twinning and linking (Towns and Development) and peace and conflict.
In the 1980s and 1990s, he fulfilled a catalyst role in organizing numerous conferences nationally and internationally focused on municipalities and international cooperating. This culminated among other things in putting this field higher on the political agenda.