Viveka Carlestam has worked in the role of senior policy specialist on Civil Society issues at Sida´s Unit for Civil Society at Sida HQ for the last 5 years. She has 30 years of experience in international development cooperation, including 20 years from Swedish International CSOs. Stationed in places such as Jordan, Colombia and Costa Rica as regional director for three Swedish CSOs/INGOs, and at the Swedish Embassy in Nicaragua, managing support to and engagement with civil society.
Her academic background is mainly within political science, but also psychology, journalism and economics. She is an activist at heart aiming at advancing and reforming our development cooperation system toward more effective and sustainable development through shifting power, agency and ownership to civil society organisations and actors in the partner countries (or so called “global south”).