Lakhdar Brahimi is a former Algerian freedom fighter, Foreign Minister, conflict mediator, veteran United Nation diplomat and expert in peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction. He joined Algeria’s liberation struggle as a student and later served his country as an ambassador and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1991 to 1993.

In 1989 he brokered the Taif Agreement, which ended Lebanon’s civil war. Widely respected as a ‘diplomatic troubleshooter’, he also chaired an independent panel in 2000 to review United Nations peacekeeping operations; the resulting ‘Brahimi Report’ made ground-breaking recommendations for change.

He was the Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the League of Arab States for Syria. He was one of the founding members of The Elders in 2007, an independent group of global leaders working together for preace, justice and human rights and remained an active member until stepping down in 2021 to become an Elder Emeritus.