Foreign partners
Foreign partners can play an important role in this process. For instance, we have built an active partnership with the Wageningen University StartLife incubator and Food Valley, helping start-ups to scale-up and find their way into international markets.
I think the Planetary Security Conference, and the workshop in particular, has helped open the eyes of many stakeholders by looking at the challenges from different angles and thus putting the role of the private sector in perspective. The position of the government is quite weak so donors often work directly with NGOs. It is essential to make the connection with the private sector. It is my firm belief that in our region, the private sector must be involved in mobilising change to reduce the risk of an even bigger water crisis. If not, change will take a long time to happen. I sincerely hope the workshop will get a lot of fruitful follow-up. It was very inspiring, but of course it doesn’t stop here. Governments, NGOs, knowledge institutes and the private sector must continue to meet and work on innovative, integral and sustainable solutions together.”