African Ambassadors’ Dinner 2016

By Roy Lie A Tjam.

The annual African Ambassadors’ Dinner was held the headquarters of Rabobank in Utrecht on December 15, 2016. The event was co organized by the NABC, with several Ambassadors in attendance.

Prior to the dinner, attendees engaged in a full day of networking with the Dutch private sector. The packed programme featured an Ambassadors’ matchmaking session and a strong line-up of guest speakers. They included Juriaan Ruys from LandLife; Mette Gongrijp from MFA, Mamadou Touré from Ubuntu Capital, Maarten van Herpen from Philips, and Coert Beerman from Rabobank.

A highlight of the day was when participants chose the winner of the 2016 Doing Business in Africa award, which went to Bosbouwbedrijf FORM International. NABC director Irene Visser presented the award to Paul Cave, the company’s CEO.

FORM International is engaged in sustainable forestry in Ghana and Tanzania. In northern Ghana, the company manages 20 thousand hectares of land which has had to recover from deforestation. A reforestation project is now underway, implementing teak and various indigenous materials.

H.E. Jean Pierre Karabaranga, Ambassador of Rwanda to the Netherlands, thanked the organizers for putting together such an excellent programme.

The famous dinner was followed by a cocktail reception.