Mr. Bert Vermaat is deputy Ambassador at the Embassy of the Netherlands in Dakar. This embassy is covering all the MSGBC Basin countries. Mr. Vermaat has a long career in international development. After graduating from the University of Amsterdam, he started working at SNV, a Dutch development organisation. For SNV, he was stationed in Benin and Niger. After that, he began at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he worked ever since. Apart from different duties at the Ministry, Mr. Vermaat worked at the Dutch Embassy in Ouagadougou before arriving in Dakar.