Amb. Gérard Stoudmann

Amb. Gérard Stoudmann has been the Special Representative for the Western Balkans of the Chairmanship of the OSCE since January 2014. He has been appointed for a two-year term after serving under the OSCE Swiss Chairmanship and currently under the Serbian Chairmanship. Prior to this, he was the Special Representative of the Swiss Foreign Ministry for Sahel from December 2012 to September 2013. From November 2009 to November 2012, he was the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe for Organizational Development and Reform. He has also served as the Special Envoy of the Swiss Foreign Ministry for Francophone Africa and the UN High Representative for the Elections in Cote d’Ivoire (by appointment of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2006). He has worked both in public service, in various positions at the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Economy, and in the private sector. Prior to joining the UN, he was Director of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy from 2002 to 2006. In 1997, he was Ambassador and elected Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw. There, he developed the institution’s preeminence in election assistance and observation throughout the OSCE: democratization programs, human rights monitoring and reporting as well as diplomatic conferences on sensitive human-dimension issues. In 1993/94, he was Managing Director of the St-Gallen Foundation for International Studies, University of St-Gallen and the St-Gallen International Management Symposium. From 1989 to 1993, he was Personal Adviser to Jean-Pascal Delamuraz, President of the Swiss Confederation and Minister of Economy. Prior to this, he served in a number of multilateral positions in the Swiss Foreign Service (Council of Europe, CSCE, European Communities, Brussels). Ambassador Stoudmann studied law at the University of Lausanne and International Relations at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. He is a member of the Board of Directors of IFES (International Foundation for Election Systems), in Washington, DC.