Grete Faremo (born 16 June 1955) is a Norwegian politician, lawyer and business leader. From August 2014 to May 2022, she held the post of Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). During her political career, she held high-level positions in the Norwegian Government including
Minister of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
from 1992-1996 and 2011–2013,
Minister of Petroleum and Energy
The Minister of Petroleum and Energy ( no, Olje- og energiministeren) is a councilor of state and chief of the Norway's Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. The current minister is Terje Aasland. The ministry is responsible for the government's en ...
Arendal
Arendal () is a municipality in Agder county in southeastern Norway. Arendal belongs to the region of Sørlandet. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Arendal (which is also the seat of Agder county). Some of the notab ...
Setesdal
Setesdal (; older name: Sætersdal) is a valley and a traditional district in Agder County in southern Norway. It consists of the municipalities of Bykle, Valle, Bygland, Iveland, and Evje og Hornnes.
The Otra river flows through the ...
, southern Norway. She is the daughter of the Norwegian politician
Osmund Faremo
Osmund Faremo (23 November 1921 – 16 April 1999) was a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party.
He was born in Hylestad and was elected to the Norwegian Parliament from Aust-Agder in 1965, and was re-elected on four occasions. He had pre ...
(1921-1999) and Tora Aamlid (1921). Much of Faremo's early political philosophy was strongly influenced by her father, who was a prisoner of war during the Second World War, after being arrested as part of Adolf Hitler's
Nacht und Nebel
''Nacht und Nebel'' (German: ), meaning Night and Fog, was a directive issued by Adolf Hitler on 7 December 1941 targeting political activists and resistance "helpers" in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, who were to ...
directive.
Faremo attended Hornnes Gymnas in the nearby town of Hornnes and graduated in 1973. She went on to study law at the
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...
, specializing in international law and spent a summer in 1978 at The Hague Academy of International Law. The same year, Faremo graduated from university with a master's degree in Law.
She entered public service 1979, joining the Ministry of Finance as a Legal Officer. She then went on to work as a Legal Officer in the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (1980-1984). Following this, she was appointed Head of Division of the Ministry of Development and left in 1986 to take up a new position as Chief Negotiator at property management company, Aker Eiendom AS. Two years later, she became the executive director at Theatrium AS, at the newly developed Aker Brygge in Oslo, leaving in 1990 to become a Director in the Norwegian Arbeiderpresse (now known as Amedia).
In 1997, Faremo became Executive Vice-President of
Storebrand
Storebrand is a financial services company in Norway. By volume, the company's main activities are related to life insurance and pension savings. However, the company also has major divisions working on investments, banking and, until 1999 and ...
, a Norwegian financial services company. She left in 2004 to take on the role as Director of Law, Corporate Affairs and Public Relations at
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
Corporation's North Europe Office and later Western Europe Office, where she developed the legal and public affairs division responsible for corporate compliance in the region. She stepped down in 2008. She was also a partner at an independent consulting firm, Rådgiverne LOS AS, for short period in 2009, before she joined the Government.
Faremo has also sat on various advisory boards and associations throughout her career, including as a member of the
Norsk Hydro
Norsk Hydro ASA (often referred to as just ''Hydro'') is a Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy company, headquartered in Oslo. It is one of the largest aluminium companies worldwide. It has operations in some 50 countries around the world a ...
ASA (2006-2009), Board Member of
COWI A/S COWI A/S is an international consulting group, specialising in engineering, environmental science and economics, with headquarters in Lyngby, Denmark.
It has been involved in more than 50,000 projects in 175 countries and has approximately 7,300 ...
(2008-2009), Chairman of the Norwegian Health SF in 2009, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of Bergen.Norsk Biografisk Leksikon
Storting
The Storting ( no, Stortinget ) (lit. the Great Thing) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years ...
'', representing the Oslo constituency. Before this, she was a member of the Oslo City Council from 1987 to 1991.
During her time as Minister of Justice, Faremo initiated negotiations between Schengen member countries and Norway on security and free movement in Europe, which culminated in the Nordic Schengen Agreement, signed in 1996 by the Governments of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
She continued as Justice Minister until the cabinet reshuffle in October 1996, where she was asked by newly appointed Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland to take over the Petroleum and Energy portfolio. However, just two months after her appointment, Faremo was forced to resign from the cabinet following the
Berge Furre
Berge Ragnar Furre (13 April 193711 January 2016) was a Norwegian historian, theologian and politician for the Socialist Left Party.
Early life and career
Furre was born in Sjernarøy in 1937, the son of engineer Berge Bergesen Furre (1887– ...
affair, which had revealed that the Norwegian Police Security Service were illegally spying on Socialist Left Party politician, Berge Furre, while he was a member of the
Lund Commission
The Lund Report (Official title: "Dokument nr. 15 (1995-96) - Rapport til Stortinget fra kommisjonen som ble nedsatt av Stortinget for å granske påstander om ulovlig overvåking av norske borgere", in English: "Document no. 15 (1995-96) - Repor ...
– a group appointed to investigate allegations of illegal surveillance of Norwegian citizens.
The illegal surveillance of Furre took place at the same time that Faremo was Justice Minister. She resigned from the cabinet on 18 December 1996, however one source says she was forced to resign. She continued in her role as a Member of the ''Storting'' (the Norwegian Parliament) until the following general election in 1997 when she did not seek re-election.
Return to government as Minister of Defence
After working in the private sector for 12 years, Faremo returned to Norwegian politics when she was appointed Minister of Defence under Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's Second Cabinet. During her time as Defence Minister, she headed the preparation of a new long-term plan for Norwegian defence, which formed the basis for the new Air Force organization, including the acquisition of new F35 fighter jets.
Minister of Justice following the 2011 Norway attacks
Facing mounting pressure in the aftermath of the
2011 Norway attacks
The 2011 Norway attacks, referred to in Norway as 22 July ( no, 22. juli) or as 22/7, were two domestic terrorist attacks by neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik against the government, the civilian population, and a Workers' Youth League (AUF) ...
over the state of the police and security, the incumbent Justice Minister, Knut Storberget, announced his resignation. He declared that six years as Justice Minister was sufficient and that he wished to focus his attention on remaining in parliament and his family. Faremo took over the Ministry on 11 November 2011, tasked with strengthening the Norwegian emergency system. This involved the establishment of a new structure, new communication systems, and clear chains of command for crisis management and communications. A thorough analysis of the police, commissioned by Faremo, formed the basis for reforms in the Norwegian police structure.
Faremo lost her position as Minister of Justice following the
2013 Norwegian parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in Norway on 8 and 9 September 2013 to elect all 169 members of the unicameral Storting. The centre-right coalition obtained 96 seats, while the incumbent red–green coalition government obtained 72 seats and ...
in which the incumbent red-green coalition lost to the a centre-right coalition made up of the Conservatives and the Progress Party – known as the “Blue-Blue” coalition.
Executive Director of United Nations Office for Project Services
On 7 May 2014, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Faremo as the Under-Secretary-General and new Executive Director of the UNOPS. She replaced Jan Mattsson who stepped down after being in charge for eight years.
Since taking over as executive director, Faremo emphasised her ambition to increase the visibility and transparency of the organization. Speaking about her goals, Faremo said: "I think UNOPS holds experiences and has made great achievements that should be better communicated, so I’ve taken it on as an important task for me to share more of that."
Faremo implemented changes to UNOPS that made it run more "like a business" and less like a bureaucratic agency dedicated to ensuring contracting rules were followed. She wrote in 2019 that under her "more than 1,200 pages of rules went into the trash" and that she was "rewriting our operational principles" in the name of running UNOPS more like a fast and agile business. Under Faremo, UNOPS also acquired a "surplus" due to charging other UN agencies more for the projects that went through it (and was accused of "overcharging" on this). However, without these safeguards, Faremo proceeded to make very questionable use of this money. She lent over 25 million dollars to David Kendrick, a British businessman she met at a party she hosted, which included paying Kendrick's young daughter 3 million dollars to write a pop song. Another initiative personally supported by Faremo, the Sustainable Investments in Infrastructure and Innovation or S3i for short, ran into major problems with its money being spent ineffectively on contractors who failed to deliver the claimed work, yet continued to be paid and have their contracts renewed.
Faremo's deputy Vitaly Vanshelboim was placed on executive leave in December 2021 as the
United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services
The United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) is an independent office in the United Nations Secretariat whose mandate is to "assist the Secretary-General in fulfilling his internal oversight responsibilities in respect of the r ...
investigated the allegations and audited the matter. Faremo resigned in disgrace in early May 2022 after a series of scathing blog posts by
Mukesh Kapila
Mukesh Kapila M.D. CBE (born 1955) is an author, medical doctor, professor and senior humanitarian.
He is a specialist in crisis and conflict management, humanitarian affairs, post-conflict and development, and HIV/AIDS. He has worked for th ...
drew attention to the problems under Faremo's tenure, and ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' published an article detailing the David Kendrick affair.
Personal life
Outside of her political and professional life, Faremo is an experienced singer. She began singing from a young age and is skilled in a variety of genres including pop, rock, musicals and cabarets. She is particularly fond of performing songs by the French cabaret singer,
Édith Piaf
Édith Piaf (, , ; born Édith Giovanna Gassion, ; December 19, 1915– October 10, 1963) was a French singer, lyricist and actress. Noted as France's national chanteuse, she was one of the country's most widely known international stars.
Pi ...
.
In 2000, she featured on a song with Norwegian rock and folk artist
called “Losbylinna” which spent five weeks at Number 1 on NRK's Norsktoppen chart
UNOPS Norsktoppen September, 2000
She is fluent in English, Danish and Swedish, aside from her Norwegian mother tongue.
Her partner is Norwegian actor, Magne Lindholm. Together they have one daughter, Oda, who works as a journalist, author and historian in Oslo.