Wim is an author, scholar and public speaker living in Maastricht, the Netherlands. He holds various affiliations at education and research institutions, and think tanks, in the Netherlands and Germany, including RWTH Aachen University, the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, the African Studies Centre, Leiden University and the International Security and Development Centre Berlin. He has contributed to the scientific work and policy advice of all the major United Nations (UN) and other international development organisations, including the World Bank, OECD, IRDC, JICA, EU and regularly advises governments and firms on strategies to enhance entrepreneurship, innovation, technology, development and trade. In the remote past, he served as a member of South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement in the country’s first democratic local government system, as well as on the council of Statistics South Africa.
