On 28 June this year, Sweden was elected by a wide margin as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the 2017–2018 term. In 2017 Sweden will take its seat on the Security Council with the five permanent members – China, France, Great Britain, Russia and the United States – and the nine other non-permanent members. Sweden will hold the presidency of the Security Council in January 2017, the first month of its two-year term.
This comes at a time marked by many complex conflicts. Syria continues to be a nightmare. Tensions in our neighbourhood have increased. The EU and the UN, established in the post-war period to maintain peace, are being questioned. Increasingly, voices are being raised for isolationism and nationalism.
This is why we have no time to lose if we want to make a difference and have a positive influence on developments in the world. In 1954, Dag Hammarskjöld, the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, said: "The UN was not created to take humanity to heaven, but to save it from hell." His words feel more relevant today than for a long time.
