Curriculum Vitae Martin Fässler

Head of Staff of the Directorate

Martin Fässler (1950) grew up in Appenzell. He studied Social Sciences and German Literature at the University of Zurich (1977). After his studies, he directed projects for youth in Zurich and worked as an alpine herdsman in the Alps of Graubünden.

After having completed the Postgraduate Study Programme on Developing Countries (NADEL) in 1986 along with a practical training course in Nepal, he managed projects for the unemployed in Switzerland, worked in the UN Iraq Programme and afterwards in the UNDP Emergency Unit Ethiopia. In 1991, he joined the SDC's Humanitarian Aid Department and began by coordinating the emergency relief and reconstruction assistance to the former Yugoslavia, and later to the Horn of Africa. He supervised the temporary Swiss programme in Rwanda following the genocide. We was Country Director of the Cooperation Office in Mozambique, also working as chargé d'affaires, before taking over responsibility for the Programme in Bern. He was Head of the Development Policy Division for 5 years. Martin Fässler is married and has one child. Of German mother tongue, he also speaks French, English, Portuguese, Nepali, and Amharic.