Máxima has doubts about continuing UN role: ‘What is my added value?’ | Show

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With videoIn the coming months, Queen Máxima will ‘consider’ whether she wants to continue her UN role. In September, she has been a special advocate for inclusive finance at the United Nations for fifteen years and her mandate will end. The number of people worldwide who have access to financial services has doubled in those years. “The question is what my added value is, I am thinking about that,” says the queen in an exclusive interview with this site, which will be published this weekend.


Jeroen Schmale and Peter Boender


This site has closely followed Queen Máxima in recent days in Colombia, the South American country she visited for three days in her UN role. On Wednesday evening she will board a scheduled flight back home.

There she ‘of course’ involves her husband, King Willem-Alexander, in her considerations. “My husband is my first advisor.”

But she also has to deal with many other partners. The United Nations itself, but also organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which have placed financial inclusion – people’s access to financial services such as checking accounts, savings accounts, loans and insurance – high on the agenda over the past fifteen years.

Queen Máxima has spent the past few days in Colombia for her UN work. She has doubts about continuing in that role. © Brunopress

“When I started this work, about 40 percent of the world’s population had access to financial services, in 2021 independent data showed that the percentage is 76 percent. And this year I expect that 80 percent of people will be able to pay, save, borrow and take out insurance. We have made incredible progress, but that does not mean the work is done. Because in some fragile states nothing is yet happening in this area.”

“The question is what my added value is, I am thinking about that. Even now that there are many organizations that can continue this work. And there are other matters that may need my attention more.”

According to Máxima, the formation of a new cabinet in the Netherlands has nothing to do with this consideration. “I don’t want to anticipate the formation, let me figure it out myself first.”

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