Last March 14, the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) named Swedish national Lotta Sylwander as their latest Philippine Representative that will take the lead in all UNICEF programs in the country. She replaces Tomoo Hozumi who had his 2-year term as country representative. With Sylwander’s strategic leadership in the design and implementation of programmes on health, on education, on protection and for the wellbeing of Filipino children, as part of the Government of Philippines-UNICEF Country Programme of Cooperation.
Before she became the Philippine representative of UNICEF, she was the representative of UNICEF in Vietnam from 2010 until the first quarter of 2014. Her focus is on child protection, on social protection, and on ethnic minority issues and to decentralized planning and programming. She had worked closely with the Ministry of Justice and justice agencies to promote the establishment of a child friendly justice system, including for children in conflict with the law and child victims and witnesses of crime. She also spearheaded the UNICEF Vietnam Resource Mobilization Strategy that establishes and maintains donor relations and pursuing fund-raising opportunities to support UNICEF programmes in Vietnam.
Included in her credentials are being Representative of UNICEF to Zambia from 2006 to 2010; and from 2001 to 2006, she served as Deputy Director General and Director of the Africa Department at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).
Sylwander holds an equivalent to Masters’ degree in Social Anthropology and was a lecturer in the University of Stockholm. She began her career in the non-government sector in Sweden and had spent time in the Philippines in the 1970 and 80s. Meanwhile, UNICEF began its operations in the Philippines in 1948, working with the people and the Government as a longstanding, trusted partner in advancing the rights of children through regular programmes and in support of countless emergencies caused by natural calamities. The current Country Programme of Cooperation (2012-2016) is the seventh five-year agreement UNICEF has signed with the Government of the Philippines, which serves as the basis of UNICEF programme implementation in the country.
