NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF SWEDEN PRESENTS CREDENTIALS TO DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF UNOG

Jan Knutsson, the new Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations Office at Geneva, today presented his credentials to Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

Prior to his appointment to Geneva, Mr. Knutsson served as Director General for International Development Cooperation at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs between 2006 and 2010. Prior to that, he was Deputy Director General and Head of the Department for Global Security Issues at the Ministry, dealing with UN affairs, conflict management, humanitarian affairs and counter terrorism.

Mr. Knutsson’s previous diplomatic assignments have taken him to Washington D.C., where he served as the Political Counsellor at the Swedish Embassy from 1997 to 2001, and he has also served in Paris, Moscow and Beijing. He was a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Stockholm between 1992 and 1995. Before taking up his post in Washington D.C., he was Deputy Head of the Department of European Security Policy at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Knutsson has a Master’s degree from the Stockholm School of Economics. He has been a research assistant at the Stockholm Institute for Soviet and East European Economies, and has published a book about China. He was born in 1958 and is married with four children.


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CR10/025E