We are celebrating Sweden-Liberia bilateral relations spanning the last ten years, 2010 – 2020! The Swedish Embassy and Ambassador Ingrid Wetterqvist invites you to join in our virtual celebration on Facebook and Instagram.
The Swedish Embassy reopened in Liberia 14 Dec 2010, after an absence since 1979 when the then Embassy closed.
Sweden had in 2010 already been present with an office since 2005 and had actively supported UNMIL through Swedish peacekeepers and Swedish police.
The focus has consistently been on development, the first years with a focus on the post-conflict situation.
UNMIL’s gradual withdrawal and final closing in March 2018 changed the dynamic. Liberia is today more of a country on a development path than a country in a post-conflict situation. The peaceful transfer of power between Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Dr George Manneh Weah late 2017 is proof, as are recent mid-term elections to the Senate, generally carried out in good order and with a high level of professionalism of both voters and poll workers.
Today the Swedish presence focuses on inclusive and sustainable economic development, renewable energy and the blue economy, human security and the cluster human rights/democracy/good governance and gender.
As from 2021, Sweden will add environment and climate change, to its cooperation programme.
Since 2014 the Feminist Foreign Policy has provided overall guidance and a lot of resources have gone to women’s empowerment, reducing SGBV, improving access to SRHR, and generally addressing the concerns of the poorest segments of society – who, more often than not, tend to be female and youth. Since 2019 we have added #DriveForDemocracy – a global campaign to strengthen democracy around the world. Liberia is a special partner in this effort.
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We celebrate this decade virtually on our social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram and twitter). Please join us and share your thoughts!
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Liberia was once a musical Mecca on the continent. Famous singer Nina Simone lived here for a while and records released in Motown in the USA where released back to back in Monrovia. Despite the long conflict, this love for music in its various forms remain embedded in the Liberian society.
We wanted to honour this by a musical co-creation. We invited the Swedish jazz musicians Örjan Hultén Quartet to meet Liberian singer Ernest Bruce, president of the Libera Jazz Association, and his friends. The result is a cd, a record called “Liberian Ballad” where seven out of nine items are new, written and inspired by Liberian sample sounds and phenomena.
Two are particularly worth mentioning:
Bird song – in the Mamba Point Hotel’s garden, Örjan Hultén overheard a Liberian bird singing a theme that he was able to copy on his saxophone. Judge for yourself if you can identify this bird!
A dive into the Swedish national archives, the Royal library, unveiled the first Trade Treaty from 1864 between Liberia and the then Swedish-Norwegian Union. Listen to the agreement being read against a jazz background.
To further illustrate our 10 years in Liberia we have invited 10 participants from ITP training programmes; these are professional exchanges with Swedish counterparts; we have invited 10 participants who studied in Sweden at advanced levels and came back to Mama Liberia; and we present 10 development cooperation projects from this first decade illustrating our partnerships with Liberia.
Our longest serving staff member, Mr Joseph MacKay, our very first employee back in 2004, shares his institutional memory of the people and the events; and our second longest staff member, Mr Charles Lawrence (he joined in January 2011) shares his reflections on Swedish presence in Libera with our colleague Ms Dwede Tarpeh.
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Welcome to enjoy our 10th Anniversary celebration in this virtual format.
Ingrid Wetterqvist
Ambassador
