Maria Hakansson, the new Swedish ambassador-designate, began her tour of duty on Tuesday, she announced via Twitter, adding that she was “very happy to be back in beautiful Uganda!”
“Today we received 5 new staff at the Embassy of Sweden including a new Ambassador-designate,” the Swedish embassy said in a separate statement.
“We are also proud to have more women this year! Over the next few days, we shall profile each of them on our social media channels. Join us to welcome them to the #PearlOfAfrica.”
Hakansson replaces Per Lindgard, who was recently posted to Somalia after completing his five-year tour of duty in Uganda.
Uganda and Sweden cooperate in different areas of development, including trade, education, infrastructure, health, and so on.
In 2019, Sweden exported $20.7 million worth of products to Uganda, according to a 2020 Uganda-Sweden Trade report.
The same report shows that Sweden bought goods worth $3.6 million from Uganda. Uganda mainly imports machinery, electronics, pharmaceuticals, vehicles and plastics from Sweden, while the East African nation sells to flowers, coffee and some manufactured products to the Scandinavian country.
The Embassy of Sweden in Kampala is supporting the implementation of a Renewable Energy Challenge Fund (RECF), which aims at supporting 153,000 low-income customers transition to renewable energy, of which at least 50 percent are women and 50 percent are youth.
“RECF further aims to create 1,000 new jobs, of which at least 60 percent of these jobs are for women and 40 percent, are for youth (the women and youth groups may overlap e.g., female youth sales agent),” the embassy says on its website.
“This will be done through the energy enterprises and also through new livelihood opportunities with renewable energy. Up to 160,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions is expected to be offset as a result.”
The Swedish government has since 2000 pumped about $73.3 million to support research cooperation between Ugandan and Swedish universities in areas of medicine, technology and innovation.
“The current research program (November 2015- June 2020) amounts to approximately 33 million USD. The program consists of 17 research projects where 11 Swedish Universities collaborates with 4 Ugandan universities with Makerere in Kampala as the primary responsibility for the program,” says the website.