Advancing Human-centred Security in a Changing Geopolitical Landscape

In today’s volatile geopolitical landscape, nations around the world are reassessing their foreign and security policies. Many are grappling with difficult decisions about how to balance strategic security imperatives with human-centred approaches that underpin sustainable peace and development.

Sweden’s accession to NATO in 2024 marks a clear inflection point: moving from a long-held identity as a non-aligned power to a position influenced more explicitly by alliance-based security, strategic national interest and responsibility in collective defence. Simultaneously, Sweden is implementing a reform agenda of its development aid that seeks to align development cooperation, humanitarian assistance and foreign policy according to new priorities.

The panel will reflect on Sweden’s recent shift in foreign policy and what this means for human-centred security. It will explore how a human security lens can continue to serve as a valuable framework for Sweden’s foreign policy in this new global era and discuss synergies between hard security and human-centred approaches.

The discussion kicks off a new Nordic dialogue series on human security and will situate Sweden’s policy transition within a regional and global conversation on the future of human security. The ‘Nordic Dialogues on Human Security’ project is a collaboration between SIPRI and the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security.

Following the panel discussion, we invite you to stay for a reception.

Speakers

Gunilla Carlsson, Chair, Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA)

Knut Vollebæk, Chair, UN Advisory Board on Human Security

Per Olsson Fridh, Director General, Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA)

Robert Egnell, Rector and Professor, Swedish Defence University

Ulrika Modéer, Secretary General, Swedish Red Cross

Moderator

Charlotta Sparre, Deputy Director, SIPRI