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Wallström's UN job paid for by Sweden: report

TT/The Local/kh
TT/The Local/kh - [email protected]
Wallström's UN job paid for by Sweden: report

Swedish taxpayers covered most of the $1 million dollar for Margot Wallström’s job with the United Nations last year.

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At the time of her appointment as UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said there was no money in the UN’s regular budget for her salary.

Therefore it was the UN Foundation, an organization that also works with sexual violence in armed conflicts, that paid $1 million to Wallström and her colleagues in New York.

At the time Wallström was appointed, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) was the foundation’s biggest contributor to the fund, according to the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper.

Since January 1 of this year, Wallström’s salary has been paid out from the regular UN budget after a decision by the Security Council.

Ban Ki-moon and the UN Security Council decided together in 2009 to establish Wallström's position.

This move was a departure from the usual route taken through the General Assembly, where Member States have the power, according to a critical internal report that DN took part in.

The foreign ministry and Sida deny reports that there was a correlation between the financial subsidy to the UN Foundation and Wallström's appointment to the position.

"It was first through the government that we found out Wallström was considered for the position and then we began lobbying," said Anders Lidén, the then UN ambassador in New York, to DN.

Margot Wallström was appointed UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict in February 2010.

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