Welcome to the website of The Broker, a bimonthly magazine and email newsletter, published by the Foundation for International Development Publications (IDP). The magazine is for all those concerned with development and globalization, especially in the fields of economics, human security, governance, and science and technology.
With this magazine, IDP aims to contribute to evidence-based policy making by encouraging exchanges between knowledge producers and development professionals. The publication of this magazine has been possible through a generous grant from the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (NWO/WOTRO) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In funding The Broker, these two organizations have followed the good Dutch tradition by guaranteeing the full journalistic independence of the makers of the magazine – of course within an agreed editorial formula. On behalf of the board of IDP I would like to thank them for their support.
The Broker’s Editor in Chief is Frans Bieckmann. Frans has a degree in international relations (with honours) from the University of Amsterdam and extensive experience as a journalist and researcher in the fields of globalization and international development cooperation. With this background, Frans is the ideal person to realize our vision to create an independent, authoritative magazine – one that relates current research to ongoing policy debates, that informs decision makers in the public and private sectors about the latest research findings, and highlights urgent policy issues that would benefit from further scrutiny by the research community.
I wish to thank Johan van de Gronden, Erik van Heeswijk, Bram Huijsman, Mirjam Ros-Tonen, Kees Schaepman, Monika Sie Dhian Ho and Fons van der Velden for accepting our invitation to become members of The Broker’s editorial committee, and for agreeing to make available their wealth of experience in research, policy and journalism to guide the development of this new magazine. The Broker aims to attract an international audience, in particular in developing countries and in Europe, and is therefore published in English. However, as a new publication we are still developing our international networks, so the first issues will focus on subjects that are of interest to Dutch readers. Over time, the scope of the magazine will be extended to include research and policy issues that will appeal to a wider international readership, especially in developing countries.In particular, The Broker wishes to encourage exchanges between the development and research communities. I therefore would like to invite readers to subscribe to The Broker (we offer a free one-year trial subscription), notify the Editor in Chief of new developments or issues that you think The Broker could address, and participate in the debates that the magazine will promote. You can do this by visiting the website www.thebrokeronline.eu, where you can comment on published articles, submit letters to the editor or contribute your own articles.Together, I hope we can all help to ensure the success of this initiative.
Louk Box
Chair of the Board Foundation for International Development Publications