Mr Peter van Rooij is the Regional Director of the ILO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, a position he has held since 1 March 2026.  Immediately prior to his current appointment, he served as the Director of the ILO’s Multilateral Partnerships and Development Cooperation Department at headquarters in Geneva.
Since joining ILO in 1995, Mr van Rooij has served at headquarters in Geneva in different capacities, including on donor coordination, in development projects and activities related to employment and microfinance, managing a project on knowledge management and worked as Advisor to the Bureau for Employers’ Activities in Geneva, in addition to a staff exchange with the Michelin company.  He has served as the Deputy Director and Country Director of the ILO Jakarta Office covering Indonesia and Timor Leste, as Director of ILO’s Decent Work Team for North Africa and ILO Country Office for Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan based in Cairo and as Deputy Regional Director for the ILO for Africa in Abidjan.
Before joining the ILO, Mr van Rooij worked as Field Implementation Officer at the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) in Khartoum, Sudan. He holds a Masters’ Degree in Economics from the Wageningen Agriculture University, the Netherlands.