Eric van de Giessen is Project Coordinator Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region at the Institute for Environmental Security in The Hague, and Media Coordinator of the Planet2025 Network.

Eric is a human geographer, with a specialisation in international development studies. For his master thesis, he focused on natural resource management and participatory land use planning in a rural area in northwest Tanzania. In 2005, Eric successfully completed a masters programme on conflict and human rights, after writing his master thesis on the role of natural resources in the escalation of conflicts in the African Great Lakes region and the opportunities for environmental peacemaking.

Eric joined the Institute for Environmental Security in January 2006, where he did research and helped to develop the Environmental Security for Poverty Alleviation programme. In 2007, he co-organized a conference about peace and sustainable development named "Forces for Sustainability". In 2008 he published the report "Charcoal in the Mist".

As Media Coordinator for Planet2025 Network, Eric has helped the network to develop into a platform for intensive dialogue and collaboration to promote sustainability world-wide.

As of 2009, Eric is coordinating IES' most recent study: the Environmental Security Assessment on the Horn of Africa. The objective of this project is to analyse the linkages between environment, security and development, as well as to draft clear-cut policy recommendations to promote environmental security in the Horn of Africa.

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