Pia Stjernvall

Thematic expertise: mediation, gender and inclusion, policing, youth

Regional/country-specific expertise: Afghanistan, Kosovo, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia

Languages: Finnish, English, Russian, French and Swedish

Pia Stjernvall is an independent free thinker and traveller. Earlier she served as the Finnish Ambassador to Kosovo. Prior to that that she worked as Ambassador for Civilian Crisis Management at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of MFA Finland and the Head of Mission of EUPOL in Afghanistan after working as the Special Representative for International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (IDPS) at MFA Finland. Stjernvall has extensive experience in Afghanistan and African contexts. She has worked, for ex-ample, as Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of Finland in Kabul, as Finland’s Deputy Permanent Representative to United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) in Nairobi, Kenya, and in the Embassies of Finland in Kenya and Hungary. During her stay in Kenya she was dealing with Uganda and Eritrea as well as Somalia peace process and negotiations with Islamic Courts Union during 2006. She has a long experience working in conflict affected areas and she was essential for starting Finland’s twinning cooperation with Afghanistan on the UNSC 1325 resolution.