About Joost Gorter - Senior Consultant

Sustainability is an elusive term. But the fact that our current modes of production and consumption are negatively affecting our environment and the livelihoods of tens of millions of commodity producing farmers and workers is far from elusive. The fact that we have to figure out a way to feed a growing world population is another issue that is very concrete, and pressing. 

These are some of the great intellectual challenges of our century, and they are daunting. Still, we already know some things that will help to address these challenges. And tomorrow we’ll know more. That is what I am working on. At NewForesight I work with a team of people that is inventing solutions that last. We are not mending things; we are not helping people cope with their problem. Instead we think about what is required to change the mechanisms that are generating the problem. That is what market transformation is about. Markets will work, but you have to make sure people know how to use them. For several years I worked at the World Bank, first in the Evaluation and Private Sector Development departments and  then two years in the Policy department. After that I worked with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in China. Most recently I spent a year and a half as a development consultant in Afghanistan, working for clients such as USAID, GIZ and the UN. I have an MA in History from the University of Amsterdam, studied Business Economics at the University of Hong Kong, American Studies at Smith College,  and obtained an MA in International Relations and Economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).