PR TIMES AFRICA PRTimesAfrica (March 2016) | Page 27

same everywhere, you scratch the surface a little bit and you always find the same thing. I agree with her. Human beings are the same, and at the end of the day it is the same things that drive people everywhere. Why Africa? Why Nigeria? I was very keen to come to Africa and to Nigeria for different reasons. Firstly I had not been to Af- rica yet and was very eager and felt it was high time for me to learn more about the continent. Looking at the different countries in Africa where Finland has embassies, Nigeria definitely seemed like the most interesting place for me to start get- ting to know Africa - the biggest economy, the biggest population, a very important player in the region, and very active internationally. I also knew that Nigeria is very active in the United Na- tions and that there are lots of Nigerians working in very important positions in the UN and other international agencies like for instance now the African Development Bank. Nigeria is not one of those places where Finland has traditionally had bilateral development cooperationprogrammes, which, after having worked for some years with development policy, also gave me a refreshing new angle to my work and to developing Finland’s bilateral relations. I took it as a nice challenge too – to have to find ways to develop a