Philippe Besson
Philippe holds a law degree from the University of Lausanne, and a Diploma in development studies from the University of Geneva, as well as a Diploma in social anthropology delivered by the Haute Ecole en Etudes Sociales in Paris (EHESS-DEA). Before joining the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in 1990, he worked at the Geneva Graduate Institute of Development Studies and at Helvetas, a Swiss NGO. During his 31 years with SDC, he managed programmes in Turkey, Poland, Palestine, India. He was assigned postings in Dhaka (Bangladesh), Niamey (Niger), Paris (OECD-DAC), Juba (South Sudan). His last assignment with SDC was as Head, Multilateral Affairs Division within SDC’s Humanitarian Aid Department. He retired in October, 2021. His particular areas of interest relate to: institutional and organisational development, aid effectiveness (ethics of aid, human development / partnership), monitoring, evaluation and learning.
I have been a member of the FFMC since November 2021, and I became the chair of FFMC in 2024. Additionally, I have been a member of the GA and the BoD since 2022.
I’d like to contribute to a holistic understanding of quality assurance. HQAI – basing itself on the CHS – offers me this chance. And: to me, it is a source of inspiration and satisfaction to work together with HQAI colleagues.
There is a lot of auditing going on in the development and humanitarian system. Usually, it addresses mainly financial and administrative compliance issues. HQAI goes much beyond those dimensions and addresses the relevance, the meaning of what we do, why we do it and how we do it, and how organisations HQAI audits can learn to do even better to serve and accompany their clients, people in need.