Peter Maurer (born 1956) is a Swiss diplomat who was the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) [1] from 1 July 2012 until October 2022 and is currently President of the Basel Institute on Governance.
Peter Maurer (born 1956) is a Swiss diplomat who was the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) [1] from 1 July 2012 until October 2022 and is currently President of the Basel Institute on Governance.
Maurer was born in Thun, Switzerland. He studied History and International Law in Bern, and was awarded a PhD.
In 1987, Maurer entered the Swiss Diplomatic Service (Federal Department of Foreign Affairs), where he held various positions in Bern and Pretoria, South Africa, before being transferred to New York in 1996 as Deputy Permanent Observer at the Swiss Mission to the United Nations. In 2000, he was appointed Ambassador and head of the division in charge of human security at the headquarters of Switzerland's Foreign Ministry in Berne. [2]
In 2004, Maurer was appointed Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations in New York. In this position, he endeavoured to integrate Switzerland, which had only recently joined the United Nations, into multilateral networks. In June 2009, the United Nations General Assembly elected Maurer Chairman of the Fifth Committee, in charge of United Nations administrative and budgetary affairs. [3] In addition, he was elected Chairman of the Burundi Configuration of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. In January 2010, Maurer became Switzerland's State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, [4] a position he held until he was elected President of the ICRC, succeeding Jakob Kellenberger in June 2012. [5]
Maurer led the ICRC through a historic budget increase, from 1.1 billion CHF in 2011 to over 1.6 billion CHF in 2015. [6] In addition, he launched the world’s first "humanitarian impact bond" scheme, in which private investors lend €22 million of five-year funding and their repayments depend on what difference the project makes to its clients’ lives. [7]
Since 2019, Maurer has been co-chairing the World Economic Forum High-Level Group on Humanitarian Investing, alongside Børge Brende and Kristalina Georgieva. [8]
In September 2019, he was re-elected as the president of the ICRC for an additional term of 4 years, until October 2022, when he was succeeded by Mirjana Spoljaric Egger. [9]
While president of the ICRC, Maurer earned an annual salary of up to CHF 437’000, while the ICRC was facing significant budget cuts. [10]
Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun [18] 
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer Klaus Schwab.
Klaus Martin Schwab is a German mechanical engineer, economist, and founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF). He has acted as the WEF's chairman since founding the organisation in 1971. In May 2024, WEF announced that Schwab will move from his role as Executive Chairman to chairman of the Board of Trustees by January 2025. No successor has been named yet.
Børge Brende is a Norwegian politician and diplomat, and has been the president of the World Economic Forum since 2017. A member of the Conservative Party, he previously was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2017, Minister of the Environment from 2001 to 2004 and Minister of Trade and Industry from 2004 to 2005. He was also a member of the Norwegian Parliament from Sør-Trøndelag between 1997 and 2009.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and promoting humanitarian norms.
Jakob Kellenberger is a former Swiss diplomat and former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Since 2013 he has been the president of swisspeace.
Jean-Marie Guéhenno is a former French diplomat who served as the United Nations' Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations from 2000 to August 2008.
Shimelis Adugna was an Ethiopian diplomat and official who was the former president of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society. He joined primary school in Hararge and attended high school at General Wingate secondary school in Addis Ababa. Eventually, he joined the then University College of Addis Ababa for BA in Education. From 1959-1961, he pursued graduate studies and received an MA in Social Service Administration from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He served as the Vice President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for Africa and as national coordinator for Jobs for Africa, an employment generation and poverty reduction program of the International Labour Organization and the United Nations Development Program. He was also the Founding President of the Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia (FGAE) for 18 years, from 1965 to 1983.
Cornelio Sommaruga was a Swiss humanitarian, lawyer and diplomat who is best known for having been President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from 1987 to 1999. He chaired the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) in Geneva. He was also active on a number of boards, such as the International Union Against Cancer. He was Chair of the Board of Directors of the Foundation For the Future, an organization dedicated to promoting human rights in the Middle East and North Africa, and the honorary President of Initiatives of Change International, a global organization dedicated to "building trust across the world's divides" of culture, nationality, belief, and background.
Alexandre Hay was a Swiss lawyer. From 1966 to 1976 he was Vice President of the Board of the Swiss National Bank. Later, from 1976 to 1987 he was President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis is a Costa Rican economist who has been serving as Secretary-General of the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) since 13 September 2021.
Beatrice Weder di Mauro is a Swiss economist who is currently Professor of economics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Research Professor and Distinguished Fellow-in-residence at the Emerging Markets Institute of INSEAD Singapore, and senior fellow at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER). Since 2018, she also serves as President of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
Filippo Grandi is an Italian diplomat and United Nations official, currently serving as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He previously served as Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and United Nations Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan. He received the Olympic Laureate award during the Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony.
Jean Simon Pictet was a Swiss citizen, jurist, legal practitioner working in international humanitarian law. First as a secretary-jurist, and then as a senior executive and Vice-President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Pictet was instrumental in drafting the 1949 Geneva Conventions for the protection of victims of war, their Commentaries, and negotiating the 1977 Additional Protocols. He also proposed the Red Cross Movement’s seven Fundamental Principles, which were adopted at Vienna in 1965: Humanity, Impartiality, Neutrality, Independence, Voluntary Service, Unity and Universality. In 1989, an international humanitarian law competition for students was founded and named after him.
Yves Daccord, is a humanitarian leader, international strategist, influencer and changemaker. From 2010 – March 2020 Yves was Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), a global humanitarian organization employing 20,000 staff. A former journalist, TV producer and international relations expert, his ICRC career spanned more than two decades in a variety of posts and challenging contexts – including Israel and the Occupied Territories, Sudan, Yemen, Chechnya and Georgia. Daccord currently leads the Edgelands Institute Harvard University’s first-ever Pop-Up Institute. He also leads the #Principles4Peace initiative to reshape peace processes around the world. He also chairs the Board of Our Common Home, an organization that promotes civic participation to build solutions to our changing natural environment and the Board of the International Human Rights Film Festival of Geneva.
María Aránzazu "Arancha" González Laya is a Spanish lawyer who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation in the Spanish government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez from 2020 to 2021. Currently, González is the dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at the elite French university Sciences Po.
Sir Mark Andrew Lowcock is a British economist and accountant who served as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator between 2017 and 2021. Prior to his appointment by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on 12 May 2017, Lowcock was the Permanent Secretary of the Department for International Development (DFID) from June 2011 to September 2017.
Feike Sijbesma is a Dutch business executive who was CEO and chairman of the managing board of DSM from 2007 until 2020. And in 2022, he was nominated as honorary chairman. He helped the Dutch government from March to September 2020 as special voluntary corona envoy, especially focused on testing policy and availability. From mid 2020, Sijbesma focuses on several board positions and the African malnutrition issue and climate (adaptation).
Gilles Carbonnier is the vice-president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and professor of development economics at Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHIED).
Mirjana Spoljaric Egger is a Swiss-Croatian diplomat. Since October 2022, she has served as the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Media related to Peter Maurer at Wikimedia Commons| History |
| ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Humanitarian organizations | |||||||
| Analysis and reporting | |||||||
| Notable people | |||||||
| Donors and funding | |||||||
| Major emergencies |
| ||||||
| Standards, power, abuse | |||||||
| Aid worker safety | |||||||
| Related fields | |||||||
| Related articles | |||||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
