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NL African voice is crucial
The African continent is rich in diverse cultures, nature and resources and also has an incredibly young population. This makes for endless opportunities and possibilities. Already highlighted in an earlier article, this is why African youth are eager to achieve a bright future for their countries. And it is important to hear these voices! For many years, we have organised Africa Day, where engaging these voices in social discussions has always been the core value.
Towards EU-Africa summit
Last December, President Macron spoke of establishing a "fair system of peace and prosperity" at the upcoming EU-Africa summit in Brussels on 17 and 18 February. Now that France holds the EU presidency and Macron will thus be the host of this sixth summit, he can really start putting this ambition into action. According to the African Union (AU), this is an important moment for establishing long-term cooperation that represents more than just a donor-and-receiver relationship.
Will you be our new intern?
Will you join our team? Due to a cancellation, we have another internship position available!
Retrospective Political Café Ethiopia
On 20 January, we organised an online political café on Ethiopia, in view of the recent escalation of the conflict (reference to Dorine's article). Our speakers were Lulessa Abadura from the Gurmuu Foundation; Habtom Yohannes, PhD candidate at Radboud University; Jan Abbink from Leiden University; and Weyni Tesfai, cultural anthropologist and historian in the field of Africa studies.
Impunity in DRC leads to major humanitarian crisis: International aid required
The corona crisis exacerbated many already prevailing problems in the world: Poverty and food insecurity increased in large numbers. Time has been set back in terms of poverty in many places. However, crises beyond corona unfortunately remain. One of the biggest crises currently taking place globally is in the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the UN, 19.6 million people in Congo are in acute food insecurity, meaning people have so little access to food that their lives are at risk. 3.6 million children are even acutely malnourished and thus at high risk of death. Yet we hear little or nothing about this. How is it that one of the biggest humanitarian crises seems to remain so out of the picture?
The war in Yemen
The war in Yemen goes on and on, after seven years of unrest. It all started during the Yemeni Revolution in 2011 and 2012, when the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh was overthrown. However, the historical roots of the conflict go much further, back to the eight-year civil war between republican and royalist forces that began in the September Revolution of 1962.
Covid expands unequal treatment of Africa
The Netherlands is in 'hard lockdown' again. After it was announced last week that primary schools had to close a week early, starting the Christmas holidays a week earlier, almost everything was closed last weekend. This hefty measure is to be taken to stop the spread of the Omikron variant of the coronavirus. Extra wry, because this outgoing government is thus proving that it wants to curb the spread of new variants, but is failing to prevent it.
Rosa van Driel leaves FMS after 4.5 years
Rosa van Driel has decided to leave the FMS for CARE Netherlands after 4.5 years, to work as a climate lobbyist for fair international climate policy. Of course, we couldn't just let this pass us by, which is why we held the following farewell interview with her:
Further escalation Ethiopia puts solution further out of sight
Last week, the United States, France and Germany urged residents in Ethiopia to leave as soon as possible while commercial flights are still going. The Dutch outgoing cabinet also urged Dutch nationals in Ethiopia to leave the country. It is yet another escalation in a conflict that seems to have only losers, but whose end is far from in sight. What happened in Ethiopia, where optimism about the future was still high in 2019 when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to make peace with neighbouring Eritrea?
FMS seeks 'democracy' and 'development' intern
Are you looking for an internship for spring 2022? And are you interested in international politics? Then come and do an internship at the FMS. For the period February to June 2022, we are again looking for 2 interns!
