CV Dr. Daniel Stauffacher
Daniel STAUFFACHER has a Master's degree in International Economic Affairs from Columbia University, New York and a Ph.D. in law from the University of Zürich After working for the Swiss private sector, he joined the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1982 and worked in New York, Laos and China. In China he was responsible for managing UNDP’s support to the economic reform program of the Chinese Government.
In 1990 he joined the Swiss Federal Office for Foreign Economic Affairs (Bawi), where he was in charge of Financial Co-operation with major Asian countries, including, India and China and subsequently with Central and Eastern Europe. In this context he was instrumental in organizing on behalf of the Swiss Government the Luzern Conference "Environment for Europe” 1993, which called for the elaboration of an Environmental Action Plan for Europe. In 1995, he was posted to the Swiss Mission to the European Union in Brussels as the Counselor for Economic and Financial Affairs.
In 1999, he became an Ambassador of Switzerland to the United Nations in Geneva and the Swiss Federal Council's Special Representative for the preparation and organization of the World Summit on Social Development in June 2000 in Geneva (Copenhagen plus Five). In 2002 Daniel Stauffacher was a member of the Swiss Delegation to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa. On behalf of the State Secretariat for Foreign Economic Affairs he was the Co-Convenor of the first Global Compact Meeting in Switzerland (2002): The UN Global Compact and Swiss Business: Making Global Responsibility Work for Business and Development, 29 October 2002, Palais des Nations, Geneva.
Daniel Stauffacher was also the Swiss Ambassador and Delegate of Swiss Federal Council for the diplomatic preparation and organization of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) that was held in Geneva in 2003. He was subsequently Switzerland’s Ambassador to the WSIS in Tunis in 2005 and an advisor to the Government of Tunisia and the UN in this regard. He was a Vice-Chairman of the Bureau of the WSIS preparatory Committee and Chairman of one of its subcommittees. On behalf of the Swiss Government he launched the ict4Peace project which resulted in the adoption of paragraphe 36 of the WSIS Tunis Commitment.
He was a member of the UN ICT Task Force, the UN Task Force on Financial Mechanisms for ICTD, the Strategy Group on Information Society of the Swiss Government.He was President of Wisekey (Switzerland) SA. He is the President of The Geneva Security Forum and a Special Advisor to the UN Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs on the Global Alliance for ICT and Development. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Earth Council Alliance and Chairman of the ICT4Peace Foundation. He is President of Daniel Stauffacher and Partners, a consulting firm in Switzerland.