As like always when one changes jobs, one needs to be known. For this purpose the business card has been invented.
Voila my new card.
The Dutch coat of arms is not very impressive, but the bengali letters more than make up for that.
I hope it is not an invite to all sorts of spam. It could say: "Even though this guy lives here, he has no clue as to what this says"
My job really didn't change the last 4 years, but by changing country and colleagues coming and going it changes at least once a year.
For those that are wondering what I do, I will try to explain.
The Netherlands spends about 5 billion euro a year on development aid, a lot of that goes to the UN, a nice bit to the EU and also a reasonable part goes to the bilateral programmes. This is where the Embassies come in. In the Dutch system development is an integral part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (unlike UK). At the embassy there is a team of people responsible for follow programmes and starting new programmes to spend the Dutch aid. My task, together with my boss and a junior, is to make sure they follow the rules. In short, it has to be aid (so not helping the rich) it has to be traceable, transparent and hopefully effective. Unfortunately we are still civil servants, so there is also some red tape involved and because some Dutch people think we are spending only on our own cigars and caviar, we have to report every detail. Also we have a lot of internal controls, which is understandable considering the amounts that are involved.
So, I probably confused you even more now. Just remember; I do some work involving figures and Dutch development aid. Which also explains why we live in countries like Rwanda, Burkina Faso and Bangladesh.
Voila my new card.
The Dutch coat of arms is not very impressive, but the bengali letters more than make up for that.
I hope it is not an invite to all sorts of spam. It could say: "Even though this guy lives here, he has no clue as to what this says"
My job really didn't change the last 4 years, but by changing country and colleagues coming and going it changes at least once a year.
For those that are wondering what I do, I will try to explain.
The Netherlands spends about 5 billion euro a year on development aid, a lot of that goes to the UN, a nice bit to the EU and also a reasonable part goes to the bilateral programmes. This is where the Embassies come in. In the Dutch system development is an integral part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (unlike UK). At the embassy there is a team of people responsible for follow programmes and starting new programmes to spend the Dutch aid. My task, together with my boss and a junior, is to make sure they follow the rules. In short, it has to be aid (so not helping the rich) it has to be traceable, transparent and hopefully effective. Unfortunately we are still civil servants, so there is also some red tape involved and because some Dutch people think we are spending only on our own cigars and caviar, we have to report every detail. Also we have a lot of internal controls, which is understandable considering the amounts that are involved.
So, I probably confused you even more now. Just remember; I do some work involving figures and Dutch development aid. Which also explains why we live in countries like Rwanda, Burkina Faso and Bangladesh.
3 comments:
Makes sense to me!!!!
Want one of your cards please:)
makes sense to me too, now I even understand why you go to such unusual places.
makes sense to me too, now I even understand why you go to such unusual places.
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