The Swedish centre-right government named Anders Nordstrom as new head of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) on October 18, 2007.
Nordstrom is currently Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva where he has been since 2003. He succeeds Maria Norrfalk who stepped down in March to become county governor of the province of Dalacarlia.
A medical doctor from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, Nordstrom has field experience as well as a background in national and international health policy and planning.
The Swedish government recently signalled it aimed to halve the number of countries that receive bilateral aid from 70 to 33 to increase efforts to combat poverty, phasing out aid to countries like Vietnam and China.
About a third of Sweden’s annual aid budget, worth some 30 billion kronor (4.3 billion dollars), is earmarked for bilateral aid.
