YEP Effect Magazine: achievements and future potential

On Monday, January 16, 2017, the YEP Effect Magazine was launched during the kick-off of the Young Expert Programmes (YEP) Training for batch 10. Representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Netherlands Water Partnership and the Food & Business Knowledge Platform were present at the event and received the first copies of the magazine from YEP. They also congratulated Young Expert number 200, Berry van den Pol, who forms part of batch 10.

YEP Water started in 2013 and YEP Agrofood followed in 2015. Three and a half years on the way, it is time to look at the achievements and future potential of YEP Programmes. The YEP Effect Magazine is an excellent tool to show those involved, and those who want to be involved, what has been and can potentially be achieved with the Young Expert Programmes. The first edition covers several stories of Young Experts and the effects they had during their work as a Young Expert. At the moment, over 200 Young Experts are/have been employed by YEP in 32 countries.

Berry van den Pol is Young Expert number 200 and will work in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on the Sahel Irrigation Initiative which is a World Bank project in six Western African countries. In the YEP Expert Magazine, he explains: ““I want to get a better understanding of the implementation and the political process of these projects. A long-term stay will improve my feeling for solutions that are realistic and effective in the local context. I prefer to think from a farmer’s or farming systems’ perspective rather than pushing for specific technologies or models. […]”

Also various YEP Partners talk about their experience with YEP Programmes. Witteveen+Bos is a consultancy and engineering company with many Young Experts in Africa and Asia: “[…] Globally we are constantly looking for new opportunities with YEP. The combination of Water and Agrofood offers this and we will send another Young Expert to Indonesia with batch 10 who will work on both topics focusing on water, energy and resource solutions for palm oil production facilities. […]”

Organizations interested in employing a Young Expert in their international Agrofood and/or Water projects, can submit project proposals for Young Expert positions until March 1, 2017. For more information, visit the YEP website.