© Adrian Moser

Mr Dominik Langenbacher was born in Berlin, in 1951, as the son of a Swiss Diplomat. He is citizen of Bolligen/BE and Basel/BS. He schooled in Berne, New York, Bangkok and, again, Berne, and studied law and international relations at the Universities of Berne and Geneva (IUHEI). Having entered the diplomatic service in 1980, Mr Langenbacher has worked throughout his career between the three poles of the United Nations, development cooperation and Africa. 

As trainee, in 1981/82, he was posted to Kinshasa and was then, upon nomination by the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs FDFA, assigned to the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC in Berne, in the field of UN and other multilateral affairs. 

In 1986, he was transferred to the Permanent Observer Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations in New York, where he covered economic and operational development activities and, in 1988/89, was elected First Vice-President of the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme UNDP. In 1990, he was assigned to the Swiss Embassy in Nairobi where he was in charge of the SDC Country Programme and promoted to Counsellor. 

Back to Berne in 1993, he served in the former Directorate for International Organizations as the inter-departmental coordinator for the whole of the Swiss administration for all UN General Assembly affairs. 

In 1996, Mr Dominik Langenbacher took a temporary leave from the Swiss government, allowing him to follow a call of UNDP to the position of Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator of the United Nations in Somalia. In this time, he coordinated the UN humanitarian response to the big floods of 1997/98. In 1998, he assisted the constitution of the Federal State of Puntland and compiled the first National Human Development Report for Somalia since the war.
In 1999, he returned to the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and was in charge of the development and implementation of a new human resources policy. 

In 2001, he was appointed Head of Mission and of the SDC Country Programme of the Embassy of Switzerland in Madagascar, as Chargé d’Affaires. In the post-electoral crisis of the country in 2001/02, he played an important role in the international mediation. The documentary film by Thomas Lüchinger, ‘Der Diplomat – Dominik Langenbacher in Madagaskar’ ( www.rosesforyou.ch), testifies of this involvement. 

From 2003 to 2005 again on leave from the FDFA, Mr Langenbacher became the ‘Delegate for Migration Dialogue’ with the title of Ambassador ad personam, in the Federal Department of Justice and Police where he negotiated bilateral Migration Agreements and lead the multilateral processes of the ‘Berne Initiative’ and the preparations for the establishment of the ‘Global Commission on International Migration’. 

In 2005, he was appointed Ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Republic of Guinea and the Republic of Niger, with residence in Abidjan. As of 2008, Cameroon and Niger were replaced by Liberia and Sierra Leone. In Côte d’Ivoire he designed a comprehensive Development Plan for the village of Bringakro and, as Kouassi Bringa, was named Chief of the village. 

In 2010, Mr Dominik Langenbacher was appointed Ambassador to Ethiopia and Djibouti, Representative to the African Union and IGAD, and, in 2011, Ambassador to South Soudan, with residence in Addis Ababa.
Mr Langenbacher is married. He listens to jazz and blues and African music, he used to be an active runner who, today, goes jogging from time to time and – as a fan of Liverpool – follows English football on television.