On Monday, Dutch Crown Princess Maxima was in Amsterdam to inaugurate the third annual WOMEN International Inc. Festival.
This event focuses on the potential of women, lasting all this week. It includes talk shows, speeddate sessions, workshops and an extensive cultural program in film, theater, cabaret, art, fashion and a market.
Maxima arrived at around 8pm local time, just hours after returning from the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Though she was a bit jetlagged, the Princess was all smiles.
Maxima met with some of the women who are participating in WOMEN Inc. She listened to their stories of struggles in life, especially settling the Netherlands. This is something Maxima can relate to, having relocated from Argentina to New York to Holland after marrying Crown Prince Willem-Alexander in 2002.
The first day of competition at the Vancouver Winter Olympics was an important one for the Dutch. Speed-skater Sven Kramer had the pressure of an entire nation as he sought to claim Olympic gold.
And thankfully, he did. Kramer did it at 6 minutes, 14 seconds during the 5,000 meter race.
Cheering him on were Dutch royals Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, his wife Crown Princess Maxima and their three young daughters. The Netherlands are big fans of speed-skating, and the royals family were there to demonstrate that. Princess Catharina-Amalia waved her orange beanie as Kramer did his golden race.
Also at the event was Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende.
Holland’s future Queen spent Friday in the town of Hoorn located in the north of the country. There Crown Princess Maxima chatted about microfinance with a financing company and local entrepreneurs. That field is her speciality, as she’s a former banker with a degree in economics.
The Crown Princess met with Start Guide, the company that helps entrepreneurs get started by use of microfinance. She was accompanied by Frank Heemskerk, State Secretary of Economic Affairs. Maxima then met for over an hour with small business owners who had benefited from microfinance.
Microfinance in the Netherlands is for people with good business plans, but who need help in developing their plans or what a bank can not correct. With coaching and credit they get the chance to make good plans approved. Start Guide focuses on people who are threatened with unemployment, labor market starters and existing entrepreneurs who could use extra support.
It should be noted that Princess Maxima is a member of Holland’s Council of Microfinance.
On Monday, Dutch Crown Princess Maxima attended the microfinancing event, “Who Profits?” at the Peace Palace at The Hague. The meeting, organized by Radio Netherlands Worldwide, focused on how to help Third World nations receive proper finances, and Maxima asked for developed nations to allow poorer countries to get easier funding.
“What I would like to make clear here is that we are inclined to focus on loans, while other financial products like savings are possibly more important for poor people,” the former banker said in her opening speech.
Check out the video below about the “Who Profits?” event, which includes an excerpt of the Crown Princess’ speech (in English)
Wednesday night saw the royal family of the Netherlands award the Prince Claus Prize at Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ in Amsterdam.. The Prize is in honor of Queen Beatrix’s late husband, who died in 2002. It began in 1997, and has a theme every year.
This year’s theme was culture and nature, and the winner was Colombian architect Simon Velez, who has been researching on how bamboo can be used as building material. Velez has designed buildings in the United States, Germany and China. In the Netherlands he will make a design for the stage in the new Tolhuistuin in Amsterdam-Noord, which will consist of a bamboo structure.
Upon receiving the award, Velez said to the audience, “Every construction which consists of concrete, steel or wood, bamboo can also be built.” He added there were doubts about his bamboo-design for the Indian pavilion at the Expo in Shanghai next year. “They wanted it would be steel. Once they heard I had won the Prince Claus Award, they gave permission to use bamboo.”
The nature and culture theme for this year’s Prince Claus Prize seems to coincide with the UN Climate Change summit in Copenhagen. Even some members of the Dutch royal family made comments on the environment.
“People seem to have forgotten to draw modestly against nature,” said Prince Constantijn, who presented the award. “The natural resources are being depleted and global warming threatens the delicate balance of our climate.”
The Prince Claus Prize is given to artists, thinkers and other innovators from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Winners receive 100,000 euros as part of the award.
Friday ended the state visit to Mexico for Dutch royals Queen Beatrix, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Crown Princess Maxima. Their tour was made up of honors, ancient sites, and a language gaffe.
Reuters/Daniel Aguilar
On Wednesday, the Queen was awarded the keys to Mexico City during a reception at the capital’s city hall. She and the Crown Princely couple were then given a tour of the city. They stopped by an education and cultural center at Santa Maria la Ribera neighborhood.
After lunch, Queen Beatrix took a tour of the National Anthropology Museum. During this, her son gave a speech at the “Energy Efficiency and Sustainability from Producer to End-user” seminar. It was there that Willem-Alexander made a mistake using a Mexican slang. He said the phrase, “camaron que se duerme se lo lleva la chingada,” or “the shrimp that falls asleep is carried away by the current.” The problem is, the word “chingada” is a Mexican term for “prostitute.”
Mexico’s newpapers put the gaffe on their front pages. One publication, Reforma, said, “Either someone played a joke on him, or the Prince of the Netherlands wanted to make his message clear.”
Reuters/Jorge Dan
Willem-Alexander’s wife, Crown Princess Maxima, is a native Argentinian. However, that term is not used in her home country, so there was no way for her to understand what the fuss was about.
On Thursday, the Queen was informed about Mexico’s climate change at Las Yerbas training center, where young agriculturalists are trained to deal with the environmental changes. Later, Beatrix and her son and daughter-in-law went to Dolores Hidaglo to see where Father Miguel Hidalgo rang the church bells to launch Mexico’s independence. The royal trio then visited the home of Diego Rivera in Guanajuato.
Friday, the last day of their trip, the Dutch royals went to Teotihuacan to see the ancient pyramids, which date to 200 BC. The day ended with a reception for the Dutch community living in Mexico.
There seems to be a lot of state and official visits in the world of royalty these days! Earlier Tuesday, Holland’s royals – Queen Beatrix, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Crown Princess Maxima – began their four day visit to Mexico. They arrived just before noon, local time, and were greeted by President Felipe Calderon and First Lady Margarita Zavala.
AP Photo/Claudio Cruz
A welcoming ceremony took place at Mexico’s National Palace. The Queen then had a private meeting with President Calderon.
After that came a wreath laying ceremony at the Child Heroes monument.
The royals then met had a meeting with Dutch business leaders looking to invest in Mexico. A visit to the Senate followed.
In the evening, there was a state banquet held in honor of the Dutch royals at the Chapultapec Castle, once the home of Emperor Maxmilian.
This state visit is to last until Friday, November 6th. I will keep you updated on the daily happenings of this trip.
On Friday, Dutch Crown Princess Maxima inaugurated two exhibitions at the Loo Palace in Apeldoorn. The first exhibit was about handheld fans, and the second showed miniature portraits. Both displays were about the Netherlands’ royal house of Orange-Nassau.
The first exposition, “Beauty Unfolded: Royal Palace Het Loo in Fans” showcased all types of handheld fans, which until the mid-20th century were part of Dutch court etiquette. The collection includes some fans used by Queen Wilhelmina, the grandmother of the current Queen Beatrix.
Crown Princess Maxima had a chance to laugh when she saw one fan that showed the faces of her three young daughters.
Next, Maxima moved on to open “Orange in Miniature”, which exhibits tiny paintings of the royals throughout a period of four centuries. The first shows Prince Maurits from 1619, and the latest are that of Queen Beatrix as a child, along with her three younger sisters.
Two weeks after her appointment as the UN Advocate for Inclusive Finances for Development, Crown Princess Maxima spoke at a special event ahead of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Meeting in Istanbul Monday.
The IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Maxima launched a Dutch-funded project in Istanbul, which is a global project aimed at collecting data on access to financial services in a bid to help policies aimed at reducing poverty.
In her speech, the Crown Princess explained how the project intends to help the 2 billion people worldwide who do not have access to finances.
“It is clear that national strategies and visions need to be developed,” Maxima said. “These strategies need the engagement of governments, the country’s regulators and supervisors, financial institutions (including NGO’s) and even telecom providers or retailers. All of these should work together to increase access to financial services.”
“The innovations in the field of financial inclusion are enormous,” she continued. “Technologies like smart cards, ATMs, and mobile banking hold the promise of both greatly expanding financial access and slashing costs for providers – making it possible to reach communities once thought infeasible.
“Also, new savings and insurance products are being piloted around the world, and having appropriate regulations is essential in taking them to scale.”
Maxima went on to talk about how the project helps to identify knowledge gaps and priorities for policy, monitors the effectiveness of policies over time, and finally provide a platform for researchers to better understand the causes and implications of financial access.
“While the IMF’s commitment is truly a breakthrough, it is also just a beginning,” the Crown Princess said. “Going forward, additional support is necessary. We need a continued push in the form of high-level commitment from governments and donors to complement this important effort with bottom-up data that will help unlock valuable information about financial services at the individual and household level.”
At the end of her speech, Maxima thanked the audience for their attention, but most importantly thanked the IMF for coming up with the initiative.
Crown Princess Maxima added another title to her long list yesterday. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon named her the U.N. Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development. She will be Ban’s representative on making financial development available to third world countries.
Reuters
In those countries, many are unable to take out a loan or even open a bank account. The U.N. is focused on changing that.
A former banker, Maxima has been a member of a U.N. board for microfinance and an accessible financial sector for a few years now, and this position displays how she is well trusted with these kinds of issues.
The Crown Princess is the second member of the Dutch royal family to be given a high position in the United Nations. Her husband, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander has been Chairman of the water and sanitation committee since 2006.
Maxima is also going to be present at the Clinton Global Initiative, and will be making a speech there later on today.
