Pat Colgan is an Irish diplomat with a long career in peacebuilding in Northern Ireland and Colombia.
Mr Colgan currently serves as the Special Representative of the Irish Government to the Colombian Ministry for Post Conflict, where he works with the Colombian government and former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on peacebuilding initiatives and the implementation of the 2016 Colombian Peace Agreement.
From 2004 to 2015, Pat Colgan served as Chief Executive of the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB), which was set up by the British and Irish Governments to manage peacebuilding programmes in Northern Ireland, Ireland and parts of Western Scotland.
During that time, he oversaw funding for over 23,000 projects aimed at consolidating peace at community level. He is an expert in the design and delivery of EU Structural Funds programmes in cross-border, transnational and inter-regional cooperation in areas as diverse as local and regional government, enterprise, environment, health and peacebuilding.
He has worked with public and private organisations in most European countries and speaks a number of different languages, including Spanish, Italian, French and German. He holds degrees at undergraduate and post-graduate level in Philosophy and Public Administration and a M.Sc. in Economics from Trinity College, Dublin.