The COVID-19 pandemic is having an impact on everything, and the UN’s 75th anniversary celebrations are no exception. Sweden’s Ambassador to the UN Anna Karin Eneström sees the anniversary as a time for reflection.

“The COVID-19 pandemic reminds us of the importance of broad, preventive public health efforts,” says Anders Nordström, Sweden’s Ambassador for Global Health. His work in recent weeks has been dominated by the COVID-19 outbreak.

It is just over a year and a half since Mosul was liberated from terrorist organisation Daesh’s reign of terror. Staff at the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad have visited Mosul to see the reconstruction of the city at first hand. Ambassador Lars Ronnås recounts a day when the horrific was set against the hopeful.

When warring parties in Yemen met in a renovated castle outside the Swedish capital last December for UN-brokered talks, they showed that perhaps there could be a way out of brutal conflict and the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, the UN Special Envoy for the country said this week.

At a time characterised by complex challenges – devastating civil wars, large migration flows and climate change – the need for humanitarian operations is acute. Since 2017, Margareta Wahlström has been President of the Swedish Red Cross. She has many years of commitment to international humanitarian work behind her, within both the UN and the Red Cross. She describes the world as more fragmented than before and says that crimes against international humanitarian law are on the rise.

Director-General for Legal Affairs, Ambassador Carl Magnus Nesser, represented Sweden at the United Nations International Law Week and took part in the deliberations on the UN International Law Commission (ILC) annual report to the Sixth Committee. Sweden attaches great importance to the work of the ILC and the Sixth Committee on legal matters.

The dramatic events surrounding the reactor breakdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant kept television viewers glued to their screens this summer.

Diplomat Mats Åberg experienced the events in real life. This is his story about working at the Embassy of Sweden in Moscow right in the middle of the unfolding Chernobyl disaster, when Sweden played a crucial role.

In September, Sweden’s Resident Representative to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Mikaela Kumlin Grant was elected Chair of the Agency’s Board of Governors. This is the first time that a Swedish representative has held that post.

The Swedish ambassador Fredrik Löjdquist assesses his challenges and responsibilities in fulfilling a trailblazing role for his country.

He is Sweden's first ambassador and special envoy for countering hybrid threats. This is a natural development considering the worsening security policy situation in Europe and the widened scope of the antagonistic state threats that we are facing.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. The Swedish Embassy in Kigali organised a discussion evening, held in April, focusing on what the world can do to contribute to knowledge about the genocide.

Sweden’s Embassy in Iraq recently carried out a field visit to meet Yazidi representatives to see how Swedish aid initiatives – through organisations such as UNFPA and UNMAS – are making a difference. Still today, 300 000 Yazidis are living as internally displaced persons in Iraq.

Follow Sweden’s day-to-day work in the UN via the Permanent Mission of Sweden to the United Nations.

She was the world’s first woman ambassador to the United Nations when she took office, at the height of the Cold War. Yet Agda Rössel remains relatively little known – in some ways forgotten.

We want to change this. Here is the story of Adga Rössel – pioneer and role model.