August 2, 2023
The recent foodFIRST ‘Vijverbergsessie’ on June 29th, titled "Africa "beyond its post-traumatic stress'': Towards a New Policy Discourse on Africa", focused on the government's new Africa strategy for 2023-2032. The session featured Koert Lindijer and Dorette Corbey as speakers. The dialogue demonstrated once again that it is clear that we need to move away from traditional development cooperation policy. But what role could or should a Dutch Africa strategy have in this new context?
May 17, 2023
How to walk the talk in accelerating food systems transformation? During the first of a two-part Vijverberg Session series, 60 stakeholders came together on March 29th 2023, to jointly sharpen their perspectives: how can the global and the Dutch community of knowledge institutions, private sector, banks, civil society and government, effectively contribute to this transformation?
January 18, 2023
The last Vijverberg session of 2022 was a hybrid event on 14 December 2022. FoodFIRST invited two guest speakers, professor Ruby Rabbinge and professor Mohammed Hassena, to discuss the importance of systems thinking in agri-food development.
December 14, 2022
We must feed nearly 10 billion people on this planet by 2050; the question is how we can do so within the planet's boundaries? “The United Nations Food Systems Summit has made it very clear that we need bold actions to transform the ways we produce, process and consume food across the world”, stated EU Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski in February 2022. [...]
September 5, 2022
FoodFIRST organized a Vijverberg session on 29 August 2022, in response to the current African food security concerns, particularly the effects of rising food and fertilizer prices since the war in Ukraine. According to Prem Bindraban of the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), this is a wake-up call regarding the need for a rapid increase in African food production and the promotion of soil health through the efficient use of fertilizers, which is currently extremely limited in the majority of African countries. Jan Willem Molenaar of AidEnvironment presented the essential components for sustainable sector transformation and how to achieve them through the development of coordinated and inclusive processes.
August 3, 2022
Socires organised her first Socires Lecture on June 27th, 2022 in the House of Europe in the Hague, the Netherlands. The lecture was hosted as one of the Vijverberg Policy Dialogues. Pieter van Geel, chairman of Socires introduced the lecture. Hans Bruning, acting director of Socires, moderated the afternoon. Professor Haroon Sheikh of the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) delivered the lecture followed by a dialogue with participants on "Geopolitics and the War in Ukraine: The Weaponization of the Economy and Food."