Queen Maxima of the Netherlands arrives in Colombia Monday for a weeklong visit in her role as the United Nations’ (UN) special advocate for inclusive finance for development.
Queen Maxima was invited to Colombia by Mauricio Cardenas, the minster of housing and public credit, to have meetings with various ministers on the subject of financial inclusion, according to a UN press release.
The goal of the visit is to familiarize the queen with the different players and mechanisms Colombia already has in place in the sphere of public economic development.
In addition to meetings in Colombia’s capital, Bogota, Queen Maxima will travel to the northeastern city of Bucaramanga, to visit micro-financing projects for rural areas in Colombia and to meet with groups of Colombian women affected by the country’s longstanding armed conflict.
The queen will then continue on to Peru, where she will conduct similar meetings with the Peruvian government.
An Argentine native, Queen Maxima joined the Netherlands’ royal family with her 2002 marriage to now King Willem-Alexander.
- UN Press Release (Press Release)