After being based in Amsterdam for more than ten years, The Broker is moving to The Hague in May. Our team has found a new home in Collab, The Hague – a brand new and lively office space in the Bazaar of Ideas.

An anniversary is a logical time to look back and reflect on lessons from the past, while also looking ahead. That is exactly what the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs did when it celebrated its 40th anniversary with a Lustrum Symposium ‘Changing directions in foreign policy – IOB at 40: learning for performance’. Bringing together policymakers, evaluators and knowledge workers, this event provided an opportunity to discuss ways forward for policy evaluation.

With a fresh government in place in the Netherlands, the new minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Sigrid Kaag, called on the public for input into her new policy through an online consultation. As an active contributor to the current knowledge agenda of Dutch development policy, we took up the opportunity to share our vision for the Dutch Foreign Trade and Development agenda. The Broker’s main message is that the Netherlands should continue valuing knowledge for development, while keeping the focus on subjects that the Netherlands is particularly knowledgeable on.

With Activism, artivism and beyond The Broker and The Spindle drew attention to a wide variety of innovative activities initiated by civil society to defend and expand civic space, government actors, the private sector and others, as essential to solving the global challenges we face today.

Since 1 January, The Broker has been sailing under a new captaincy. After saying goodbye to long-standing director Frans Bieckmann, Remmelt de Weerd and Saskia Hollander have taken the helm. It is high time to get to know the new board of directors a little better.

On 1 December 2017, The Broker took part in the conference ‘Research & policy: two peas in a pod? A dialogue for food security impact’, organized by the F&BKP and NWO-WOTRO. Our team of knowledge brokers reported on the day, interviewed key figures and captured take-home messages.