H.E. Ambassador Sten Rylander

H.E. Ambassador Sten Rylander started his professional career at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1970. For nine years (1970-79), he held various positions, including postings at the Nordic Office of the World Bank in Washington, DC from 1972-1974, and at the Swedish OECD-delegation in Paris, from 1974-1976. Passionate about Africa and its development, Ambassador Rylander took up his new position as the Country Director of SIDA in Botswana in 1979. He held this position until 1981. Following a brief stint back in Sweden, Ambassador Rylander later was appointed Swedish Ambassador to Angola from 1985-1988, during a very difficult and volatile period. During these years he had close contacts with various liberation movements, including the African National Congress (ANC) and the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), which both had wide-ranging activities in Angola. At that time SWAPO was headquartered in Luanda. After two years in Stockholm as Assistant Under-Secretary for bilateral development cooperation, again with much work focused on the liberation movements, he moved on to become Ambassador in Namibia, during the first exciting years of independence (1990-95). Following his term in Namibia, Ambassador Rylander served as the first Head of the Eastern and Western Africa Department and later after a merger of the full Africa Department of SIDA from 1995-1998. He then took up a new position as Swedish Ambassador in Tanzania, where he served for five years. He later became a roving Ambassador for dialogue with Africa for three years – including serving as the EU Representative in the Darfur conflict. During the period 2006-2010 Sten Rylander was the Swedish Ambassador to Zimbabwe. He retired from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in March 2011 but continues with his active engagement with Africa. He is a Senior Adviser to the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation in Uppsala, Sweden.