Mark Sedwill: Special Representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan

Mark Sedwill is the UK's Special Representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Born in 1964 and educated at Bourne Grammar School, Lincolnshire followed by the University of St Andrews where he gained a Bachelor of Science (BSc), and later a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) from St Edmund Hall, Oxford.

After university, he joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with his first overseas posting based in Cairo 1991-4 as a Second Secretary to Egypt, followed by then First Secretary in Iraq from 1996-97 whilst serving as a United Nations Weapons Inspector, and then in Nicosia as First Secretary for Political-Military Affairs and Counterterrorism from 1997-99. He was the Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Robin Cook and Jack Straw) from 2000-02. From 2003 he was the Deputy High Commissioner to Pakistan, followed by a year in 2006 as the Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa Department, and then in 2006-8 he was the International Director at the UK Border Agency.

In April 2009, he was appointed Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, and then in January 2010 moved across to NATO Senior Civilian Representative to Afghanistan, to be the civilian counterpart to the ISAF Commander, US General Stanley A. McChrystal and then US General David H. Petraeus.

On 13 April 2011 it was announced that Mark Sedwill would become UK Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, taking over in early May. In January 2012, he also took up the new position of Director General South Asia at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

He married in 1999 and has one daughter. He was appointed CMG in 2008 and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, FRGS.