Interesting example Mari Lise. Indeed, all over the Dutch news these days, poor 'old farts' having difficulty to find jobs, at least in the Netherlands. This is also because the Netherlands has revised its pension system and people who would previously have stopped working at the age of 58-62 (VUT) are now obligated to work on until 65-67. But the fact that these people have difficulty finding jobs also shows that other sectors, profitable sectors are making the choice to hire young people. Maybe without a corporate conscience, and that is shameful. But still, obviously the profit sectors see profit in hiring young people. Why isn't the development sector acknowledging these profits? According to the ViseVersa research, experienced people do not have a problem in the Dutch development sector.

Probably the 'old farts' , on an individual level, are all very suitable, inspiring and innovative people. I do not wish to question this . What I see is that the development people as a group, represent a sector that is inward looking and conservative sector that makes mistakes. The Dutch development sector is loosing ground very fast because of their inability to adapt. For me, this is a direct consequence of only hiring experience.
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Africa indeed lacks experience but the 'old fart' is still dealing the cards in Africa. I wouldn't be the first to say that hiërarchy according to age is part of the problem in some of the developing communities. The fact that Africa is lacking 'experience’ also means that we should steer our policies towards that problem. We could also identify the advantages of Africa being young. For instance, after the baby-boom europe saw a long period of prosperity because... The Dutch development sector can only give these advantages a boost when they also hire young people.