Chief of Mission
International Organization for Migration

Mr. Andreas Halbach, the current Chief of Mission of the International Organization for Migra- tion in Vienna, studied law in Munich, Geneva and Münster and holds a degree in law (Juri- stisches Staatsexamen) from the University of Münster. He also holds a Master of International Administration from the School for International Training in Vermont, USA. For thirty years, Mr. Halbach has been working for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Over the course of his carrier with the IOM, he has been stationed in Malaysia, the Philippines, Sudan, El Salvador, Croatia, Germany and Aus- tria, where he is currently serving as Chief of Mission. Mr. Halbach started his career with the IOM during the South East Asia refugee crisis as an Operations Assistant in Malaysia, then as an Operations Officer in the Philippines. Further career steps took him to IOM Sudan as Chief of Mission, then to El Salvador for seven years, and later Croatia for four years, much of it at times of civil war. Transferred to Vienna in 1998, Mr. Hal- bach became Regional Representative for South Eastern and Eastern Europe and later Regional Coordinator for the 1996 Geneva Conference (CIS).
In 2003 he became the Regional Coordinator for Iraq emergency (he was stationed in Larnaka and Bagdad). He went on to serve as Head of the Special Liaison Mission in Vienna and from 2006 to 2009 as Head of the Special Liaison Mission in Berlin. As of 2009, Mr. Halbach is again Head of the Special Liaison Mission in Vienna.
Mr. Halbach acquired a broad range of experience covering all aspects of migration governance, inclu- ding forced migration and humanitarian emergency response; technical cooperation and capacity buil- ding; trafficking in persons; labour migration; regional processes; programme and office management; resources management; regional strategy and coordination and oversight.