Gaudenz Silberschmidt, M.D., M.A.

Ambassador Gaudenz Silberschmidt heads the International Affairs Division of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health. Prior to joining the Swiss administration in 2003, he directed the International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE), a nongovernmental organization. In his current position, his primary achievements include chairing the draft committee for the World Health Assembly Resolutions WHA 58.3 on the Adoption of the International Health Regulations and WHA 59.24 on Public Health, Innovation, Essential Health Research and Intellectual Property Rights: Towards a Global Strategy and Plan of Action. He also initiated the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)/World Health Organization (WHO) reviews of the Swiss health system, led the elaboration of the Swiss Health Foreign Policy, led the negotiation team for the procurement of pre-pandemic vaccine, and is leading the negotiations toward a health agreement between Switzerland and the European Union.
Ambassador Silberschmidt is a member the Executive Board of WHO and its Program, Budget and Administration Committee. Before that he was member of the Standing Committee of the Regional Committee for Europe of WHO and the bureau of the OECD health committee. He received his medical degree from the University of Zurich and holds a master’s degree in international relations from the University of St. Gallen. Dr. Silberschmidt also studied tropical medicine and public health at the Swiss Tropical Institute in Basel. Amongst his publications figure a proposal in The Lancet to “create a committee C of the World Health Assembly” to improve coordination in global health governance; “The European Approach to Global Health Identifying Common Ground for a U.S.–EU Agenda, A Report of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center”; and the working paper 6 of the Global Health Program at the Graduate Institute Geneva on “How to set priorities for WHO”.
For the Global Health Program of the Graduate Institute he chairs the external advisory group and regularly teaches in and directs global health diplomacy courses in Geneva, Beijing, Nairobi and Jakarta.