Pierre Gentile

In September 2024, Pierre Gentile has been nominated as the UN representative in the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP).

Until September 2024, he was leading the Center for Social Integration of Refugees (CSIR) in Lausanne. A state service following some 3’000 refugees who, for the first years after they have been admitted to Switzerland, receive a monthly integration income and are encouraged to complete their education and find employment in the region.
In 2021 he received, with the CSIR, a prize from CivicLab – CivicChallenge, a competition of innovative ideas and projects from and for the public sector in Switzerland, with a project linked to digital governance and refugee’s social and professional insertion.

Previously he worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from 1996 to 2019. He spent more than ten years in the field as delegate, head of office, and protection co-ordinator. He worked in the Balkan, in Afghanistan, in Latin America, Africa, and the middle east.
In 2007, he moved to the Protection Division at ICRC headquarters in Geneva, to establish the unit working the Protection of Civilian Population (PoC). In this function he also led an interagency work to create professional standards for protection work.
From 2012 to 2014 he was in charge of one of the flagship projects for the Red Cross and Red Crescent: the “Health Care in Danger” project initiated after the International Conference of the Movement in 2011. In 2014, he was appointed as head of ICRC’s Protection Division and the Central Tracing Agency.