About

Well before my retirement in 2016, I told a dozen of my friends about my idea of creating a website for written exchange and debate, as well as texts and think pieces on Africa, the West, and the Rest of the World. I would name it otherPriorities.com. They all had their personal attachment to the continent, and I had worked together with them in or on Africa. They were interested and asked me to let them know when I started. I built the site, and in the fall of 2016, we came together in Bern to see how it would work.

Most would not commit to writing and publicizing their thoughts and findings on a given issue on the internet. So, we founded the ‘Afrika-Stamm’ instead, a regulars’ table talking about Africa. I organized my trips to Switzerland around these meetings, and for two years, we had exchanges and debates on various African topics, set in advance, and introduced by one of us. Barely anything in writing on otherPriorities.com. Participation started to fizzle out, and then the Coronavirus lock-down in 2020 prevented us from meeting at all.

Our table on Africa still exists, albeit in a smaller group and with less ambition. As for me, I continued exploring the human condition in Africa and the West. I started writing bits and pieces of text, and since 2021, I have offered my stories, anecdotes, and findings on my website. They are based on facts, occurrences, and images from the media and science, as well as my personal and professional experiences and adventures.

Friends and readers encouraged me to present these writings in book form. In early 2025 with Mystery Publishers in Nairobi, I did so. In In and Outside Africa, I look at the African continent and visit some of its people. I follow human evolution from its animal beginnings up to the point where Homo sapiens leave Africa. And I try to establish the natural base of all modern humans’ behaviors regarding survival, aggression, sex, community, and spirituality.

But I have many more stories to tell, and my account of the human condition in Africa and the West continues. I invite you to follow the evolving story here.

Nairobi, March 2025

Dominik Langenbacher

Curriculum Vitae

Recent Photo:

A citizen of Bolligen/BE and Basel/BS, Switzerland, I was born in Berlin, in 1951, as the son of a Swiss Diplomat. I schooled in Bern, New York, Bangkok and, again Bern, and studied public and constitutional law, and international relations at the Universities of Bern and Geneva (IUHEI) respectively. I read and write German, English and French, with professional working experience in all three languages. In the Swiss diplomatic service from 1980 to 2016, I have worked throughout my career between three poles: United Nations UN, development cooperation, and Africa.

As diplomatic trainee, I volunteered for Kinshasa and was then, upon nomination by the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs FDFA in 1982, assigned to the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC in Bern, in the field of UN and other multilateral affairs.

In 1986, I joined the Swiss Mission to the United Nations in New York, where I covered economic and operational development activities and, for the year 1988/89, was the First Vice-President of the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme UNDP. In 1990, I was assigned to the Swiss Embassy in Nairobi, where I was in charge of the SDC Country Programme and UNEP and was promoted to Diplomatic Counsellor.

Back to Bern in 1993, I served in the Directorate for International Organizations as the inter-departmental coordinator for the entire Swiss administration for UN General Assembly affairs.

In 1996, I took a temporary leave from the Swiss government, allowing me to follow a call from UNDP to the position of UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Somalia. In this time, I coordinated the UN humanitarian response to the big floods of 1997/98. In 1998, I assisted the constitution of the Federal State of Puntland and compiled the first National Human Development Report for Somalia since the war.

At the end of 1999, I returned to the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and was in charge of the development and implementation of a new human resources policy.

In 2001, I became Head of Mission and Coordinator of the SDC Country Programme at the Swiss Embassy in Madagascar. In the post-electoral crisis of the country in 2001/02, I contributed to the international mediation of the crisis. The documentary film by Thomas Lüchinger, ‘Der Diplomat – Dominik Langenbacher in Madagaskar’ testifies of this involvement. See: www.rosesforyou.ch

From 2003 to 2005, again on leave from the FDFA, I was the Swiss ‘Delegate for Migration Dialogue’ with the title of Ambassador ad personam, in the Federal Department of Justice and Police. I negotiated bilateral Migration Agreements and, in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration IOM, I lead the multilateral processes of the ‘Berne Initiative’ and the preparations for the establishment of the ‘Global Commission on International Migration’ under the roof of the UN.

In 2005, I became the Swiss Ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Republic of Guinea and the Republic of Niger, with residence in Abidjan. As of 2008, Liberia and Sierra Leone replaced Cameroon and Niger. Côte d’Ivoire was lingering in her pre-electoral crisis while Liberia and Sierra Leone were both in difficult post-conflict stages, and I closely worked with the respective UN Missions of ONUCI, UNMIL and UNAMSIL. Together with a group of friends from the ‘Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques’ in Abidjan, I helped design a comprehensive Development Plan for the village of Bringakro and, to the name of Kouassi Bringa, was named honorary Chief of the village. In 2013, I returned to Bringakro on a call from the village council. They asked me to mediate in a conflict between the elders and the youth of the village over the lease of land to a private company.

From 2010 to 2013, I was the Swiss Ambassador to Ethiopia and Djibouti, and Representative to the African Union AU and IGAD. In 2011, I was appointed also to the newborn state of South Soudan, all with residence in Addis Ababa. During my tenure, with the Ethiopian House of Federation, IGAD, UNDP and the Forum of Federations FOF, I organized the first regional conference on federalism and decentralized governance for the Horn of Africa. I also gave my support to the effort of a group of Ethiopian and Swiss architects to design and build a ‘New Ethiopian Sustainable Town’ BuraNEST, which became the model for rural towns in the Ethiopian urbanization strategy.

From October 2013 to my retirement in May 2016, I was the Ambassador and Special Envoy of Switzerland to Somalia, posted in the Swiss Embassy in Nairobi. Switzerland investing in federalism, both bilaterally and within the framework of UNSOM and the New Deal Compact, I animated a ‘Federalism Consortium for Somalia’ that regularly brought together the Ambassadors of a group of federal countries with Somali leadership for exchange on principles and practice of federalism. In the ongoing state-building process, I contributed towards the establishment of a federal governance system between the federal government and the existing and emerging federal member states. With regard to the status of Somaliland, I undertook efforts to promote talks between Hargeisa and Mogadishu.

I am married to an African of Kenyan origin and I listen to jazz and blues, and African music. I used to be an active runner who, today, does yoga and fitness, and – as a fan of Liverpool – follows English football on television. I live in Nairobi, Kenya, and on my frequent visits to Switzerland, in Ferenberg near Bern.

Less recent photos:

70 !