Ambassador of the Netherlands to South Africa, Han Peters

“If we want to make an impact, we need to form partnerships.” This was the key message delivered by Ambassador of the Netherlands to South Africa Han Peters.

Peters spoke about partnering with South Africa, its private sector, its cities and its civil society to rebuild countries sustainably and inclusively. If you really want to have an impact, he said, you need collaboration.

“It is impossible to combat climate change without partnerships. We seek out partners to be able to do things we wouldn’t be able to do on our own: to expand our skill set and resources. That’s how you create something of value. And a beautiful union, I feel, is working together to complement one another, and build something creative and fresh that one person alone may not have been able to accomplish,” Peters explained.

Peters spoke of a “triple helix” of cooperation between academia, industry and government to solve problems. This approach has worked well in the Netherlands, he said.

Rather than a government prescribing what needs to be done, it enlists universities and the private sector as partners, unleashing their creative power and their assets so that “solutions can be found that go beyond what the government could accomplish on its own” .

The Dutch Embassy has partnered with Eskom and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition to find out if and how jobs in agriculture can be created in Grootvlei, Mpumalanga, an area where a huge power plant may at some point be decommissioned, resulting in job loss.

“We intend to bring Dutch companies into the area to promote investments in new agriculture activities. Because in the end, we need the private sector if we want jobs to be created,” he said.