Geneva (ICRC) – At its meeting on 2 March, the Assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) appointed Ms Barbara Wildhaber and Mr Gilles Carbonnier as its newest members. They will take up their functions in June. This brings the membership of the Committee to 19.
The Assembly also appointed Mr Carbonnier to the post of vice-president. He will succeed Ms Christine Beerli in Spring 2018.
Ms Barbara Wildhaber, from Switzerland, holds a doctorate of medicine from the University of Zurich. She specialized in paediatric surgery in Switzerland and was appointed professor and head of the service of paediatric surgery at the Geneva University Hospital (HUG) in 2010. Since 2014, she has been the director of the Centre Universitaire Romand de Chirurgie Pédiatrique, and a professor at the University of Lausanne.
In her capacity as a paediatric surgeon, she has carried out missions to Ukraine, the Dominican Republic and South Africa. She is also a researcher, and a member of the board of several academic journals and foundations, including the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (Académie Suisse des Sciences Médicales).
Mr Gilles Carbonnier, from Switzerland, has a PhD in economics. He is professor of development economics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, where he further serves as director of studies. His expertise focuses on the economic dimensions of armed conflict and disaster, international cooperation, and the nexus between natural resources and development. Since 2012, he has been president of the Geneva Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action, and vice-president of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes. Mr Carbonnier is editor-in-chief of the eJournal International Development Policy.
Prior to joining the Graduate Institute in February 2007, Mr Carbonnier worked at the ICRC, where he held several positions in the field between 1989 and 1991: in Ethiopia, Iraq, Sri Lanka and El Salvador. He also served as economic adviser based at ICRC headquarters from 1999 to 2006. He was a member of the board of MSF-Switzerland from 2007 to 2012.
The Assembly, composed of between 15 and 25 members of Swiss nationality, is the supreme governing body of the ICRC. It oversees all the ICRC's activities, decides the institutional strategy, adopts major policy documents and approves the organization's objectives and budgets.
For further information, please contact:
Ewan Watson, ICRC Geneva, tel. : + 41 79 244 64 70
