From feminist foreign policy to flat-pack humanitarianism: Sweden’s pitch for UNHCR next boss

On October 14, Sweden nominated Jesper Brodin as the new “Marshal” of UNHCR, which raised some eyebrows across several sectors. However, this move is emblematic; it signals less a neutral skills match than a statement about how appointments are now argued, packaged, and politicized far beyond simple human resources craft.

It is also another illustration of Sweden’s broader departure from its historically successful approach to development cooperation and the increasing politicization of foreign aid.

Despite being one of the UN system’s most steadfast supporters since the days of Dag Hammarskjöld, by supporting peacekeeping efforts and sustaining decades of highly effective ODA, Sweden has never held an Executive Director or Administrator post within the UN’s global funds or programmes (e.g., UNDP, UNICEF, UNHCR, WFP). The closest it came was Jan Mattsson’s 2006 appointment as Executive Director of UNOPS, the UNDP project-services arm. Some see this as a paradox that says much about how global appointments and domestic priorities have evolved.

Formally, it may say “appointed by the Secretary-General,” but outcomes are forged in corridors long before the announcement. In fact, UN top jobs are not, and never will be, decided by résumés alone, and even less with competency-based assessments. 

Appointments to posts at the highest echelons of the UN are predicated on forces beyond optics. For the Secretary General, it is mainly three factors. First, there is the tradition of rotation between different regions, taking turns staffing the Secretary General’s Office. Secondly, the intent and resolve of nominating government is always followed by relentless lobbying by its permanent mission, dangling fresh and visible aid commitments, to obtain tacit buy-in from Security Council heavyweights and key General Assembly blocs, where bilateral promises are made and future votes are exchanged. Ultimately, the P5 in the Security Council sends up the white smoke.

Far from the formal approval of the Security Council, the process for the appointment of an Executive Director is very similar, and there is absolutely no doubt that Jesper Brodin is an effective leader, because you do not rise to the top of a massive and complex global enterprise like IKEA nor do you earn the confidence of a founder as purpose-driven, demanding, and eccentric as Ingvar Kamprad, without exceptional ability and a solid track record of creating profit. 

But consider the reverse. Could a senior UN or civil-society leader plausibly ascend to the helm of a multinational corporation, an entity accountable to shareholders, markets, and quarterly results?

The notion seems implausible, and that asymmetry is telling; it is rooted in what we reward and value versus profit. In practice, “leadership” is treated as one-directional, corporate experience is assumed universally transferable, while decades of public or social sector leadership rarely count in return, because one can be measured mathematically, whereas the value the UN delivers is more complex, and inherently more political.

This nomination comes full circle to ideology and to the current government’s view of development cooperation. Since his appointment, the Minister for International Development Cooperation has advanced a distinctly corporate and, by many, highly criticised model of ODA, one that prizes efficiency, branding, and measurable return of Swedish business, over solidarity, long-term institution-building, or local ownership.

This ideological push for reform has, on several occasions, offered backhanded and misleading critiques of Sweden’s own aid legacy. In doing so, the minister continues a trajectory set by his predecessor, recasting aid less as a moral commitment and more as an extension of national business strategy.

Sweden, meanwhile, has extraordinary candidates already tested at the highest levels of the multilateral system, such as Ulrika Modéer, former State Secretary for International Development Cooperation, former UN Assistant Secretary-General, and UNDP Assistant Administrator, now Secretary-General of Sweden’s largest non-profit, the Swedish Red Cross. 

Or how about Margot Wallström, former Minister for Foreign Affairs, former European Commissioner and Vice-President of the European Commission, and former United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, handpicked by President Zelenskyy to co-chair a high-level working group on the environmental consequences of the war and Ukraine’s green recovery.

Maybe these competent women turned down an offer to be nominated? Most likely not. The problem is that they belong to the ideological opposition as Social Democrats, whose governments introduced the concept of a feminist foreign policy, a policy the current government was quick to abolish.

Jesper Brodin will find himself at the deep end of the pool. He will soon discover that the attacks on the very principles and foundations of international law, upon which UNHCR rests, cannot be repelled by brand strategy, quarterly reporting, or agile management tools. There is no Allen key for tightening the bolts of international law when China, Russia, and their allies try to recode human rights into something else.

UNHCR’s challenges are not flat-pack problems; they arrive incomplete, asymmetric, and without instructions, demanding political capital rather than assembly skills.

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