Sofia Strive

Sofia Strive is a project manager at SEI Headquarter – Environment Policy and Strategy Team – Societies, Climate and Policy Support Division. She is involved in the implementation of the Green Agenda for Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine (GUMA) programme. Sofia comes with strong experience in programme management in different international contexts and through experiences with public, private, grassroot and civil society actors. As a red thread through her career, she has built, coordinated and managed projects aimed at strengthening civil society’s resilience to social, political, and environmental challenges.

Before joining SEI, Sofia has been the coordinator of the secretariat of a European network called MenEngage Europe consisting of more than 100 members covering 33 countries in EU, Western Balkans and Eastern Partnership and focused on gender equality and violence prevention. She has also supported the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies (SCEEUS) at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (Utrikespolitiska Institutet – UI) with a pilot study covering the Eastern Partnership region and been the programme manager of the “Swedish Civil Society Network for the Eastern Partnership and Russia” at the Swedish civil society platform ForumCiv. Moreover, she was elected to the role as co-chair in the Steering Committee of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum – a regional forum with 1200 member in the EaP and EU with the aim to represent the voice of civil society in policy discussions, consultations and political advocacy initiatives towards EU policy makers and local governments in the EaP. In these roles, Sofia has contributed to building cross-border collaborations, advocacy efforts and policy dialogue between EU actors and civil society organisations in Eastern Europe and been managing different parts of the programme cycle, from fundraising to implementation and evaluation.

Before moving to Sweden, Sofia lived in Serbia where she worked for the international consultancy company NIRAS with implementation of different development projects, in for instance Ukraine, Poland and Ethiopia. She has also lived in Iran where she has supported the UN World Food Programme, in Kosovo for the Swedish Embassy and in Georgia for a local grassroot organisation focused at increasing the engagement of women in local politics.

Sofia holds a Master’s degree in International Development and Management (LUMID) from Lund University and an Executive Master’s degree in European Studies from University of Gothenburg, where her thesis explored the EU’s External Action Service’s role in promoting LGBTQI rights in Georgia and its impact on the LGBTQI community in the country. She also has a Bachelor’s degree in Global Development Studies from Gothenburg University.