Pekka Haavisto was born in Helsinki on 23 March 1958. He was a Member of Parliament in 1983–1995 and was re-elected to Parliament in 2007. In 1995–1999, he served as Minister of Development and the Environment and in 2013–2014 as Minister for International Development. In 1993–1995 and in 2018–2019, he was Party Leader of the Greens in Finland. He has also served several years as a member of the Helsinki City Council. He stood as a candidate in the presidential election in Finland in 2012 and in 2018.
He has gained wide experience of various areas of foreign policy, for example, while chairing the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Task Forces on environmental impacts of war in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, occupied Palestinian territory and Sudan. He has also worked as the EU Special Representative for Sudan and Darfur, Special Advisor for the UN (ASG) in the Darfur peace process, and Special Representative to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in African crises.
Pekka Haavisto lives in a registered partnership. His main interests are books, cycling, wooden boats and cultural backyards.
To mark the Freedom Online Coalition’s (FOC) 10th anniversary, Finland, as the Chair, is organising a virtual FOC 10th Anniversary Ministerial Meeting on 3 December 2021, hosted by Pekka Haavisto, the Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Ministerial, the culmination of Finland’s FOC Chairship, is an important opportunity to raise the visibility of the Coalition and to set the FOC's goals and vision for the 2020s.