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  • Organisation

    Rabobank Foundation

    Rabobank Foundation is Investment partner of the BiD Challenge and has earmarked 70,000 euro for investment in BiD Challenge ...

 
User

Josien Sluijs

  • Josien Sluijs

    Josien Sluijs

The road travelled

Through my internship at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I was introduced in the field international cooperation. As the Netherlands is an important donor, I learned about the Dutch approach in poverty reduction. The reason why I choose to study Political Science with a focus on International Relations was that I wanted to understand these activities in an international context. During these studies, I learned about different approaches from different donors in dealing with poverty reduction through all kinds of projects (from large infrastructure projects to food aid). When I carried out an assignment at the World Food Programme in India, I realised that structural efforts need to be made (and changed) to reduce poverty and improve gender equality.

During this period, it was increasingly understood that economic development can never be realised without the private sector. This is why I decided to start working for Rabobank, a cooperative bank with a strong commitment to development of the rural sector in developing countries. Being employed at Rabo International Advisory Services BV, I work with international donors (who fund the projects) and private and state owned banks (who need restructuring), all in order to improve access to financial services for SMEs.

I still strongly believe that reducing poverty cannot be done without involvement of the private sector. Especially the SME segment in developing countries need to be stimulated, and donor efforts should be increasingly focused on that. Through stimulating development of SMEs, one stimulates job creation at large, which is often preferred over stimulating many poor people to become micro-entrepreneur.

From May of this year, I have decided to focus completely on setting up my own company, in which I will focus on working with SMEs.

Further, even though I am fully committed to this new initiative, I really want to enjoy my work and I want to always strive to a balance in spending time with family and friends and work related activities.