Peter Franke

frankewycisk@geonet.de

Peter Franke, socal scientist, is working at present at the German Asia Foundation (Asienstiftung) in Essen/Germany as German coordinator of a joint program Forum Worlds of Labour - China and Germany for dialogue and exchange between activists from Germany and China. He teaches part-time at the University for Applied Social Sciences in Bochum. He joined ARENA staff as Asia-Europe Issue Interpreter in from 2002 to 2005 to help initiate and implement an Asia-Europe Dialogue Programme as a systematic process of engaged communication and dialogue between civil societies in Europe and Asia. He is fellow since 2005. After graduating in from the University of Bochum, Germany in social sciences with the emphasis on urban and rural development, development politics and Chinese history in 1975 he has done comprehensive urban social research work as well as part time teaching. At the same time he was involved continuously in international solidarity work. In 1983 he was co-founder of the Southeast Asia Information Centre (Sudostasien Informationsstelle) and 15 years its executive director and editor of the centre`s quarterly publication Sudostasien Informationen (later Sudostasien). In that capacity he was also one of the initiators and cofounders of the German Asia Foundation in 1992 and subsequently the Asiahouse in Essen.