Governing Board

Stefan Löfven is Chair of the SIPRI Governing Board as of June 2022. Löfven was the Prime Minister of Sweden from October 2014 to November 2021 and leader of the Social Democratic Party from 2012 to 2021. His background includes extensive experience from various domestic and international assignments. In 2022, he was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General to co-lead a High-level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism in preparation for the Summit of the Future. He was previously the International Secretary of the Swedish trade union IF Metall and, subsequently, its Chair (2006–12). He was also a board member of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (2006–12), a board member of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (2010–12), Deputy Chair of the Swedish Trade Council (2004–12) and a board member of the Olof Palme International Centre (2002–2006).

Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas is a Ghanaian politician, lawyer, diplomat and academic. He is currently the African Union High Representative for Silencing the Guns. He served previously as Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for West Africa and Head of the UN Office for West Africa (UNOWAS) from 2014 to 2021. Dr Chambas was the Joint Special representative (JSR) of the African Union – United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) and Joint Chief Mediator (JCM) in charge of the Darfur peace negotiations between 2013–14. From 2010–13, he was the Secretary General of the African Caribbean and Pacific Group (ACP). Prior to his leadership of the ACP, Dr Chambas served as President of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) from 2007–2010. He also served as the Executive Secretary of ECOWAS starting in February 2002, when ECOWAS was a Secretariat. From 2010–13, he was the Secretary General of the African Caribbean and Pacific Group (ACP). Prior to his leadership of the ACP, Dr Chambas served as President of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) from 2007–2010. 

Ambassador Chan Heng Chee is a Singaporean academic and diplomat currently serving as Ambassador-at-Large with the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is Chair of the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities at the Singapore University of Technology and Design and Chair of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies–Yusof Ishak Institute. Previously, Ambassador Chan Heng Chee was Singapore’s Ambassador to the United States and Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Currently she is Deputy Chairman of the Social Science Research Council, a member of the Science of Cities Committee, National Research Foundation, and a member of the Advisory Council on the Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence and Data, Ministry of Communications and Information. She is also a member of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights.

Dr Noha El-Mikawy is the Dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP) at the American University in Cairo (AUC). She is the former Regional Director of the Ford Foundation Office of the Middle East and North Africa (2012-2022). Noha served as Team Leader for Governance at the UNDP Regional Center between 2005-2007 and 2009-2012 supporting governance in Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Jordan, Tunisia, and Yemen. She was the Policy Advisor at the UNDP Oslo Governance Center in Norway (2007-2009), supervising UNDP’s global project on governance assessments, legal empowerment of the poor, and gender-sensitive service delivery. Noha led comparative research on the political economy of MENA at the Centre for Development Research at the University of Bonn (Germany) in 2000-2005 and lectured on Politics of the Middle East in Egypt and Germany (1991-2000). Noha served on the governing and advisory boards of the Economic Research Forum, the Center for Mediterranean Integration, the Swedish Dialogue Institute for the Middle East and North Africa, and the Arab Reform Initiative.  Noha holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles (USA), and a BA from the American University in Cairo.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno is a French diplomat, currently a Senior Advisor at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and a member of the UN Secretary General High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation. He is a member of the team of senior advisors of the President of the General Assembly of the UN and since 2014, Jean-Marie has been a Distinguished Fellow with Brookings Institute. He was the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General for the funding of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and from 2014–17, he was the President and CEO of the International Crisis Group. From 2000–08 he was Under-Secretary-General for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the UN. Jean-Marie Guéhenno is an expert in peacekeeping, global governance and transnational security threats.

Radha Kumar is the Former Chair of United Nations University Council. Previously, she was Director General of the Delhi Policy Group, the first independent think tank in India. She is a specialist in ethnic conflicts, peacemaking and peacebuilding, often from a feminist perspective. She has written five books and numerous journal articles on the topic and holds a PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India and an MA and BA from Cambridge University, UK. Previously, she has been on the Board of the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the Foundation for Communal Harmony (India, Ministry of Home Affairs). 

Dr Patricia Lewis is the Research Director for International Security at Chatham House. Previously she was Deputy Director and Scientist-in-Residence at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute, Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and Director of VERTIC (Verification Research, Training and Information Centre). Dr Lewis served on the 2004–06 Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMD), the 2010–11 Advisory Panel on Future Priorities of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and was an Advisor to the 2008–10 International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND). She was a Commissioner on the 2014–16 Global Commission on Internet Governance and is on the EEAS Space Advisory Board (SAB) as a Senior Space Advisor to the EU Special Envoy for Space.

Dr Jessica Tuchman Mathews is a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She served as Carnegie’s President from 1997 until 2005. She was director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Washington program and a senior fellow from 1994 to 1997. From 1982 to 1993, she was founding vice president and director of research of the World Resources Institute, an internationally known center for policy research on environmental and natural resource management issues. From 1977 to 1979, she was director of the Office of Global Issues at the National Security Council, covering nuclear proliferation, conventional arms sales, and human rights. She has served in the U.S. State Department and on the National Security Council staff in the White House.