[citation needed] Tveit was elected as the seventh general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in August 2009 during its Central Committee meeting and was re-elected to a second term in July 2014.

Tveit is the youngest general secretary to have been elected since Willem Visser 't Hooft, who had led the WCC while it was in process of formation and following its founding assembly in 1948.

In 2013, King Abdullah II of Jordan presented him with the Al-Hussein Decoration for Distinguished Service in the field of inter-religious dialogue and cooperation in pursuit of peace among peoples.

[citation needed] In 2015, Hanshin University in Seoul, Republic of Korea, awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his vision of unity, justice and peace.

Dr Olav Fykse Tveit has accepted an invitation from the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children to serve on the organization's board of directors.