Jean Marc Zbinden

Architect - Water and Habitat in Detention Advisor, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Switzerland

Jean-Marc Zbinden assumes the position of Water and Habitat (Wathab) Advisor as part of the Persons Deprived of Liberty Unit at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Headquarters. As such, he develops technical and institutional guidance and policy on public health engineering in Detention in global remit.
Prior to his position, Mr.Zbinden was assuming the role of Wathab Regional Coordinator in Bangkok, where he was supporting and advising ICRC teams in the Asia and Pacific region on Public Health Engineering issues, including a specific emphasis on Detention matters. He was representing the ICRC at the Asian Conference for Correctional Facilities Architects and Planners’ (ACCFA) board of governance.
Mr. Zbinden has started to work for the ICRC in 2001. He was successively a Wathab Engineer in Ethiopia, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and then a Wathab Coordinator in Liberia, Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe. He was involved in several activities such as, wells rehabilitation/construction, Internal Displaced Camps follow-up, clinics/hospitals rehabilitation/construction, and urban water treatment plant rehabilitation.
He then joined ICRC Head Quarter in Geneva as Head of Sector, where he was covering consequently the West Africa and Asia/Pacific zones, focusing on Policy, Human Resources and guidelines related to the Wathab activities. In parallel, he was responsible for the Civil Engineering and Architecture thematic for the main ICRC construction projects worldwide. He held this position from 2008 up to early 2014. He returned then to field positions, where he alternated the roles of coordinator and regional coordinator in between Bangkok and Manila until May 2023.
Before to join the ICRC, Mr. Zbinden worked as an architect in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. He was graduated as draftsman in 1992 and then as architect in 1997.
Mr Zbinden is a Swiss citizen. His mother tongue is French, he is fluent in English and has some basics in German and Spanish.