Annemieke Nijhof

Mrs. Annemieke Nijhof

Mrs. Annemieke Nijhof was appointed as Advisor to the Prime Minister of the Netherlands on Spatial Planning, Transport, Water and Environment in May 2005. She is responsible for the preparation of the decisionmaking process by the Dutch Government on al Environment and Sustainable Development, Spatial planning, Transport and Watermanagement affairs. She also advices the Prime Minister on these topics.

Before mrs Nijhof came to the Prime Minister’s Office, she worked for the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment, as dept. Director of the Department for External Safety (2002-2005). Due to a big explosion of SF-fireworks in Enschede, a town in the eastern part of the Netherlands in 2000, 22 people were killed, over 1000 people were injured and more than 1500 people lost their houses. As a result the Dutch policy on external safety needed to be revised in short time. Therefore a special department has been formed to accomplice this task.

Other positions with the central Government were Head of the department of scenario planning and policy evaluation in spatial planning (1999-2002), and coordinator for technical sciences at the Ministry for Education and Science (1998-1999).

Mrs Nijhof started her career at Tauw, a dutch consultancy firm on construction, environment and spatial planning. She worked several years in the section for soilremediation (1991-1995) and was head of the department for spatial planning and watermanagement (1995-1998). At Tauw she was skilled in projectmanagement and leadership essentials.

Mrs. Nijhof holds a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering (with honour, 1990) and a Masters degree in Business Administration (with honour, 1997).

Mrs. Nijhof is married and has 2 children.

Presentation on Dutch policy on sustainable development

Sustainable development is a complex and challenging topic. It’s about people, planet and profit. It’s about behaviour of individuals, of local authorities, national policy, European coordination and international effort to change trade systems, financial arrangements and innovation.

The prime minister of the Netherlands has discussed the topic recently in Dutch parliament. He gave his personal vision on the guiding principles and the relation between energy, ecology and poverty.

Four guiding principles will be explained and illustrated: 1) decoupling of economic growth and environmental pressure, 2) minimizing the external effects of own activities (to other areas or in time), 3) sharing responsibilities and 4) no lowering ambition if things get tough.

Sustainable development should be internalized in the decision making process on all levels. Energy will be discussed as the key issue. Energy is related to big issues as availability, climate change and economic development.