A reflection from almost a decade in V?xj?

I am in the process of changing path by completing my nine years with the Municipality of V?xj? to join the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) on 1 September 2021 to work with climate-, environment and economic development in the MENA-region from the Swedish Embassy in Amman, Jordan. Maybe it′s not a change, but rather an alignment back to the career choice I made after graduating from University in 1997, namely to my commitment to work in international development and utilising the knowledge gained from my Business degree in marketing and my previous life experience to do something which felt more important with my life than only ‘selling stuff’. Now being in transition into something new, I feel encouraged to make a little reflection on my last nine years working for the Municipality of V?xj?, one of the most dynamic and innovative medium sized cities in Sweden.

From the time of making my career choice in 1997, I kept this, relative straight path for the coming 15 years. The first few of those I worked with an export promotion project for the UN in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from Thailand. The following few years, I worked from ‘home base’ for the Swedish development consultancy Hifab and for the final nine years up to 2012, for the European Commission in Jordan, Barbados, and Uruguay. Those were all good years and I really enjoyed both the personal life and the diversity of the jobs and the many EU-funded projects I was engaged with. These jobs brought me into exiting and sometimes scary experiences both from a private and professional perspective. Those included, for instance, adopting my oldest daughter Yada while living in Thailand, meeting up with Nelson Mandela at two different continents and being drawn right into a deadly shooting incident in Afghanistan.

In 2012 my family decided to go back to Sweden from Uruguay and made the choice to move to V?xj?, a rather small but nice city in the south-central Sweden. I was not entirely happy with the idea to leave my ‘international career’ but understood that it probably would be the best for my children that were approaching the latter part of their primarily school studies and otherwise would risk becoming international nomads for the rest of their life’s.

Not believing that I would be able to easily find a job that matched my profile in V?xj?, I saw myself staying abroad for some time while my family was moving to Sweden. However, when seeing the job as ‘International Project Developer’ with the Municipality of V?xj? I decided to apply, got immediate, positive response, and was offered the job. I was somewhat puzzled with the fact that a rather small city like V?xj? was interested to work with international projects development, but when checking the city website I found out that the city was labelled the ‘Greenest City in Europe’, had been engaged with numerous international projects, was intensively engaged with international networks related to environment and seemed to be well known as a strong and ambitious actor on promoting environmental sustainability among European cities. Even if not fully knowing what the job was about, I accepted the position and decided to withdraw from my job with the European Commission, which I must admit was not an easy decision as I really liked what I did.

When accepting the post I did not expect to stay long on the as I was filled with prejudice, not seeing how a job in a Swedish municipality could be interesting enough to keep my interest up and to compensate for the rather huge pay-cut I had to take to shift from international work so I expected it to become a rather short stint.?

However, when starting to work with in V?xj? I realised that it was not such a bad choice and now nine years later I can look back at a rather exiting journey. I stayed around at this; my longest lasting job due of several reasons. The most important of those where most probably that the job gave med opportunity to work with truly professional and committed colleagues and partners and jointly with them develop several highly innovative projects, which has positively impacted V?xj? and contributed to the city’s reputation of being a forward-looking, innovative and sustainable city. The fact that the job gave me the opportunity to learn something new every day and over the years build a strong international network of highly dedicated professionals were another.

In fact, it is something special with V?xj?. It is a little hard to say exactly what, but the city has a real hunger for staying in the front-line for sustainable development and is willing to take rather bold decisions, in full political consensus to achieve that. The main objective of this high level of ambition is of course to build sustainable local environment with the highest life quality for its citizens, but the fact that the high level contributes positively to the city’s attractiveness at large is other motivating factors.

V?xj? has a ‘cooperation climate’ which is truly unique. Maybe this is partly due to the city is rather small with everyone being interlinked in one way or the other, maybe the fact that it is a university city with several regional and national development actors (such as the regional authority ?present are strong contributors? Those are at least some of the reasons why V?xj? as probably the first city in the world made the decision to become a fossil free city already in 1996 and is among the first Swedish cities to reach fully fossil free energy production in the district heating plant ‘Sandviksverket’.

Yes, it has been exciting years and I have been engaged in so many interesting processes. In fact, I think that we over these years has developed winning proposals for almost all the thematic fields of the new European Green Deal, which contributed to V?xj? being awarded the ‘European Green Leaf’ award in 2018. Worth mentioning are the READY project (EU/FP6) under which we renovated some 300 apartments to very high energy standards and the DIACCESS project (EU/UIA) in which we work together with digital innovators develops first class digital services to solve societal challenges. Memorable processes incudes the development of a concept for a Reuse village, projects to promote electric cycling and for restorations of eutrophicated lakes. The proposal which included V?xj? in the Viable Cities programme and positioned V?xj? as one of nine front-running cities to become climate neutral by 2030 was among the memorable achievements we have made. Other exiting projects includes V?xj?’s engagement in development cooperation under which we work closely with cities in South Africa, Kosovo, and Vietnam. Personally, I have had much satisfaction to participate in developing projects to promote waste- and water management with the city of Long Xuyen in Vietnam and for being part of the steering board for the cooperation with Vushtrri in Kosovo. Also, my engagement in the Executive Board of the Union of the Baltic Cities and all the fantastic contacts I have gained in the Baltic Sea region through this commitment is among the highlights of these years.

Having said this, I am truly excited about my upcoming job in Sida and for returning to work in international development cooperation again. The job as ‘thematic expert on environment and climate’, will in reality mean that I will join a team of three experts that will manage a hub for climate-, environment and economic development for the MENA-region, representing 12 countries in Northern Africa and the Middle East. I expect the job to be diverse and engage contacts with a myriad of different actors in the 12 countries to ensure that Swedish development funding in these areas are wisely used. This will most certainly include cooperation with national and local governments, bilateral and multilateral development agencies, NGOs, and different types of private sector organisations and involve different types of contractual agreements for implementation of development initiatives related to climate- and environment. The region is diverse and have huge challenges related to the climate crisis, where the shortage of water and rapidly rising temperatures are among the issues which needs immediate attention. There are also opportunities, including for instance that the region is among the sunniest places on earth which could vouch for opportunities when it comes to solar energy.

Looking forward to staying in contact with you all from my new position. I will start with a few months working from the Sida HQ in Stockholm and transfer to Jordan sometime in early 2022 if everything goes as planned.