The Grand Bargain Ambassadors
Since June 2023 and the launch of the new iteration of the Grand Bargain, the Ambassadors have assumed the crucial role of overseeing the process towards its strategic objective. Each Ambassador spearheads particular focus area objectives, participation, localisation, quality funding, and catalysing system-wide transformation.
Jemilah Mahmood
Dr. Jemilah Mahmood is a medical professional and seasoned humanitarian managing crises in health, disasters and conflict settings. She is currently the Executive Director of the newly established Sunway Centre for Planetary Health at Sunway University in Malaysia. She holds advisory roles at the Consultative Council for Foreign Policy Malaysia and Ministry of Health Malaysia.
She is currently the National Advisor to the Malaysia Red Crescent Society and a member of the board of the Norwegian Refugee Council as well as several corporate boards in Malaysia and Switzerland. In 2023, she was appointed to the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council of Responsible Resource Use. She is a strong advocate of planetary health and sustainability and actively advises on Environment, Social and Governance in the advisory and board roles she holds.
Previous appointments include the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia on Public Health, Under Secretary General for Partnerships at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Chief of the World Humanitarian Summit secretariat at the United Nations, and Chief of the Humanitarian Response Branch at UNFPA. She is the founder of MERCY Malaysia, a southern based international humanitarian organisation.
As part of the Grand Bargain process, Jemilah Mahmood oversees the participation focus area.
Manuel Bessler
Manuel Bessler recently concluded his role as the head of the Department of Humanitarian Aid and Deputy Director General within the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), a position he occupied since October 2011. Before, from April 2009 – 2011, he headed the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs of the United Nations (OCHA) in Pakistan. From 2000 – 2011, he worked in OCHA, initially in the Division for Humanitarian Policy in New York and later as head of the OCHA Office in Jerusalem. In 1994, he worked on the military desk of the Force Inspector General of the United Nations Protection Force in the former Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR).
Born in Zurich, Switzerland, Mr. Bessler studied law at the University of Zurich and at Harvard
Law School. After working as a lawyer in Zurich, he joined the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1991 and among other things worked as legal advisor of the ICRC Delegation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, head of the ICRC Sub-Delegation in Jerusalem, liaison- and information delegate in Haiti, and head of the ICRC Mission in Chechnya and of the ICRC Delegation in Iraq.
As part of the Grand Bargain process, Manuel Bessler oversees the localisation and quality funding focus areas.
Michael Köhler
Dr Michael Köhler is the Deputy Director-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations in the European Commission’s DG ECHO where he coordinates the world-wide EU humanitarian aid activities. From April 2022 to February 2023 (both inclusive), he also served as Acting Director-General at DG ECHO.
Michael has 36 years of professional experience in international cooperation, aid and foreign policy. After six years as a Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation director in charge of four German financed development projects in Morocco and Tunisia, he joined the German cooperation ministry BMZ for two years before starting his career in the EU in 1994, working in a succession of Middle Eastern, aid, policy coordination, maritime policy, energy, neighbourhood policy and humanitarian policy functions throughout his career. Michael is holding a variety of senior management positions since 2008.
Michael Köhler holds a Dr. phil. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Hamburg University (1987). Since 1997 he is a professor for "Europe and the Mediterranean" the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, teaching also at PSIA-Sciences Po Paris.
As part of the Grand Bargain process, Michael Köhler oversees the quality funding and catalysing sector-wide transformation (anticipation action, multi-stakeholder collaboration, innovative financing) focus areas.