Peer Gatter

Peer Gatter is a political scientist and scholar of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies with a focus on water politics and the political economy of the Middle East. Following his studies at the Universities of Tubingen, Teheran and Georgetown, he worked as freelance journalist for the German weeklies "Die Zeit", "Focus" and "Der Spiegel" reporting mostly from Afghanistan, Iran, West Africa and Northern Ireland. Since 1999 he worked for nearly a decade in and on Yemen for the World Bank and UNDP. His portfolio included decentralization, agricultural reform, water and environment, protection of the biodiversity of Socotra Archipelago and the Red Sea, and last but not least, qat. He organized Yemen's "First National Conference on Qat" (2002). In 2008, he joined the German international cooperation in Syria and Lebanon where he worked as coordinator of the water sector. In 2010, he returned to Germany and coordinates GIZ's Program for Intercultural Relations with Muslim Countries.