 She is one of the most popular members of the Dutch royal family and while her famous heads and tiaras have grabbed the international media's attention, Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands has walked the extra mile to shine a light on a cause close to her heart. A banker and financier by training, Queen Máxima has travelled the world as the United Nations' Secretary General Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, a mission beyond her constitutional duty as the consort of the Dutch King, Willem Alexander. I'm Steph Vase in Senegal's capital, Dakar. For her first trip since the Covid-19 pandemic, Queen Máxima in her UN capacity visits West Africa, a region she prioritises to increase financial and digital inclusion along with financial help. Her four-day tour began in Ivory Coast with a full schedule filled with contrasts. In the neighbourhood of Abobo, one of Abidjan's poorest, Queen Máxima met and listened to some of the people she hopes to help. And in an attempt to promote and improve connectivity between Kesshu farmers and the industry sector, she visited a local factory. Queen Máxima of the Netherlands explained why she embarked on such a mission. Since I was a child, I wanted to change the economic lives of people. When I was 14, I decided I wanted to study economics to actually help people out. I was actually living also in a developing country where the macroeconomic situation was not very good in Argentina. So therefore I decided, well, this is going to be my thing. And now it's about agricultural development, also women development, but all basically an economic inclusion and economic empowerment. She also had the opportunity to exchange ideas with leaders from different financial institutions in the region and beyond. Here in Senegal, Queen Máxima met farming communities as well as President Máxima and members of his government. But once the media are gone and the red carpets are rolled up, how will the queen ensure that these trips are fruitful and that her advocacy for financial inclusion and for development will reach those who need it most? We will find out in the next half an hour. Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands talks to Al Jazeera. Your Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, thank you for talking to Al Jazeera. I've witnessed you for the last four or five days in action as an advocate to promote financial inclusion and to eradicate poverty. But I also know you as a popular glamorous queen of the Netherlands. Who is Queen Máxima? What role suits you best, the poverty fighter or the glamorous queen? It's all together. I think I do everything that I try to do with my old self, you know. Since I was 14 years old, I actually wanted to study economics, because I realized in my country of birth that things didn't work for really the normal people. And since then I've had this passion, which maybe you call it glamour, maybe I call it sort of where I'm born from, so this Latin American way of being. But also in a very Dutch diligent way. So I think I've actually learned from a lot of pieces to actually make this work. And I don't do this alone, I do this with a lot of partners at the World Bank, the Gates Foundation, the Better Than Cash Alliance, C-Gap, you know, IFC and many other partners that do help me to achieve this. And for me helping people out of poverty, that nothing that gives me a bigger kick and nothing that can give me more energy. And you slip easily back from one world of glamour and wealth to the other world, which is really poor. Yeah, but I don't see my normal days as glamour and wealth. There's also a lot of hard work and my life might seem like a life of a queen, but I have a very normal day, my kids go to the bicycle to school, and they all have budgets and they have to attain themselves too. And we work very hard, so I don't see myself. And I think in any case I have to use my position to improve the lives of others, I think that's what I've been trying to do. We will get back to that later, but I want to go back to what you said, your childhood growing up in Argentina. You said you were 14 when you decided to become an economist. And it was a very, very difficult time for Argentina, a very bad crisis, a debt crisis, the banks were going bankrupt, lots of poverty. Can you remember the first images in your life of poverty? What was your first experience? I think my biggest shock is when I saw really what inflation did to people with less means, and they had no way to protect themselves against that inflation. You know, whilst people that could actually sort of access better means of protection, they could actually buy dollars back then, or put in a very good sort of, you know, saving account that actually would also contrast the inflation. And to see people holding onto these pesos, they had no means of actually fighting this inflation, and losing by the end of the month half of their income in a hike of prices, that really shocked me. I said, my God, we have to do things differently. Is there an image that still is in your mind? No, just seeing people. And seeing after a very big sort of inflation shock, you could actually see more people beggars in the street, more people in the street really not being able to find a home. And I see that every time in every country I go after sort of a very big crisis, you see the impoverishment. You don't have to have the numbers to see it. You see it in the streets. So you decided people need bank accounts. They need financial inclusion. That's what you believe in. And financial inclusion means to an end. It's not an end in itself. People do not become better because they have a bank account. But when they do have a bank account, when they have a means to actually save, when they have, and then they start saving, they could actually become sort of more credit worthy. And then they actually do get a credit to actually invest in their business. And then one of the biggest issues is that we know that people, once they fight very hard to get their poverty, then remember the family gets sick, or they have an accident, or the rain doesn't come and they fall back into poverty. So insurance is extremely important in these cases. And then let's not disregard the importance of payments because how many women actually sort of get a payment and they have to take a bus to actually go and make the deposit in the bank or actually get the payment from the state. And sometimes the bus fare is actually half of the payment they get from the state. And they're two days in the bus and leaving their businesses and their families behind. So being able to actually get that cash transfer the state gives to you in your home, on your mobile phone, it's just priceless. It's also secure. It also gives them security. You said before you used this function as the queen of the Netherlands to help with this job, right? Where exactly does it help? Well, the fact in the beginning it did help because, of course, having this position, it does bring people together. But afterwards you have to learn the métier, like we say, and really get internalized in all the details because, you know, the devil is in the detail in these issues. If we talk about sort of, you know, how do we do that more women have more access to mobile banking, for example. Well, first of all, they have access to a phone. And then I need to know the cost structure for women. Is it really costly? Is it more costly here in Senegal than it is in Benin or it is in Kenya to actually not only own a phone but pay the, you know, the bundle? And then I have to sort of be able to discuss with the ministers and say, you know, listen, your price is very high because of this and this and that, and this is what you'll be doing. So, you know, I'm depending on so many infrastructural issues that I need to know to the detail of why these issues are the way they are to help them better. But the doors of ministers and presidents open more easily because you're a queen. Yeah, yeah, but at the same time, I've been doing this for around 15 years. So, I have a track record, I hope, not only myself but also with all our partners in, you know, that this issue has been working. Of course, in the very beginning, when I had to knock the doors and they just sit down and listen to me, you know, why should I be listening to a queen talking to me about financial inclusion? But now I'm known together with all my partners that we've actually brought success. More than 1.4 billion people had had more access to financial services in the last nine years. So, there is a success story to be told. And I think that also mobilizes people. Still, like 40% has not, right? No, but we're going to have at the end of this month all the new figures and I'm very confident we've also made a big jump in the last three years. But are you disappointed that it's not going as fast as you would like to because it's still nearly half the population living from cash? Well, you know, we've come from such a low base and certain countries, you know, are now nearly completely financially included. And I couldn't speak to all the countries at once, right? So, we started with 25 countries. Most of the 25 countries are by now like 80% included so I need to go to the next level of countries. So, I guess it's also a question of, you know, trying, being able to give the attention to all the countries that actually need it and to prioritize. We've seen you going into lots of meetings with high-ranking officials in Ivory Coast and here in Senegal, you also met President Maquisal. How are you ensuring that when the photo opportunities they want to have also with you, when the red carpets are rolled up and you go home, that they actually implement what you have been asking for? Well, a good example now is just with the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Finance actually has learned this National Strategy of Financial Inclusion and I said to them, listen, I'm very nice to actually have a whole report with a strategy but much more important it is to implement it and coordinate among different ministries and also private sector players and with a central bank that is regional. So, what we do is actually we have all of my partners that actually are also on the ground. We actually said we're going to help you with this, this and this and that with very timely bound deadlines and also they ask me every six months to have a conference call with them so we do that via Zoom or whatever. So we control it and we also give, by then I also have an analysis what has been done or not done so I can keep on insisting and it does work very well. I've done it with several countries and that works very well to actually keep the rhythm and the pace of transformation. Of course, watch the whole journey, the trip that you made last week and what I also noticed is that the media reports about your trip are for a lot of percentages, maybe 80% about what you're wearing, about the designer, the clothes you're wearing. Does that frustrate you? Well, you know, there's press freedom so I guess I cannot say much about it. Of course I would like it to be much more on the content than it is or what I'm wearing. That is the case but I also see very good media covering what I'm doing and what I'm wearing so I prefer to focus on that. The African countries also are a bit disappointed with, for example, western countries and western aid. How sure are you that they actually really want to listen to a western queen? Well, I cannot say about the disappointment. I think that that's something that is beyond my capacity to actually make an analysis of it. I think, and then it goes back to the whole question you said before, they're not only talking to a queen, they're speaking to a special advocate for the Secretary General of the United Nations and that means they're also representing me. So those 193 member states that are actually united in the United Nations, I'm also representing them. And also because I've done this for so many years, somewhere there's this credibility that gives them the reason to take me seriously and to really go into technical issues. You're also really strongly coming out for women empowerment. I read somewhere in your university years, you were kind of a bit of a rebel, you stood up in a theology class against a priest who said that women should serve men. And then you asked, why am I actually studying then? And you were actually removed from class. What does that say about you? I think it's pretty clear, don't you think so? On many levels, I think it is of utmost importance to actually support women develop themselves. It is good for the women themselves and to be independent, but it's also good for society as a whole. We know that we invest in a woman, we invest in the whole families and the kids are going to go more to school. And this lady said to me, when she started having this whole program in which she has savings and sort of a little bit of insurance to actually sort of put it in their little companies. And two of them said, you know, my children are going to university. She didn't even finish her school herself. So, you know, this is the effect on investing in women. And I have to say also, I think that women are extremely capable of doing so many good things and we have to just give them the opportunity. And in this case, that's why we're now trying with the African Union to have this very big program of digital and financial inclusion for women because women are less likely to own a phone and less likely to use internet. There's a huge gap. It is closing very little by little and I do not want to generalize because, for example, in Senegal, this gap is shrinking and Cote d'Ivoire, it was widening, but we need to work a lot more in including the women in the system. If they do not have a phone, they will not be included in the economic system, not fully. And these type of issues we need to fight for because it's like investing. It's such a small investment that would actually have such a big return because when we do that, I mean they will be able to do so much more. And also part of the 50% of the agricultures are women. If we need an agricultural revolution in Africa, we need the women. But where did that come from in that university? Where did that come from? From you. What role did you have? I think my father was amazing in supporting me and he had seven daughters, so I think he had to invest in daughters otherwise he knew that his old age would actually come. That's a joke, but he was so good at giving us a lot of support and letting us know that women can be as good as men and he was very supportive and he would never say whatever we had in our minds he always said to us, speak up and tell us what you think. He thought he really was very much about equal opportunities. Well, your father was a minister of agriculture in the Argentinian government of the Fidella regime back then. So is that an example for you that the agriculture, the farming interests you have? That's the reason why I'm also interested in farming. It's a double thing I think. On the one hand, yes, I do have an emotional attachment to farming because I grew up talking about farmers, yields of farming, different products, the importance of exporting, the importance of subsystem farming, the importance of also the value chains that need to be supported. So that's what I heard all my life. So of course I do have an understanding or at least a bond with it. But also, to be honest with you, if we have to fight poverty, most of the poor people, certainly here in Africa, live in the rural areas. And there's the subsystem farmers that actually are really trying to make ends meet in a very tough way and we need to really invest a lot more in farming. It will talk about increasing livelihoods. We have a deficit of billions of dollars production in all its ways from the very start to at least the transformation of agriculture products. So we need to really focus how to engage with the farmers a lot better. We have 550 million small-holder farmers around the world that are not getting the credit, nor the services they need to really make that change. And we thoroughly miss it. You are in university hoping, of course, that women would be empowered in your lifetime in a satisfying way. If you look at the situation right now, for example, in the Netherlands, we still haven't had a female prime minister and also looking at the situation here in Africa with the gender gap and women still being more in poverty than men, if you look at the compared situation. What went wrong? Well, I don't think one should actually say what went wrong. Even here in Senegal, I was just being told that about 20 years ago women could not even inherit or own anything, not even allowed to have a bank account and they now can actually inherit and own a bank account and there are many women ministers here in Senegal that was unthinkable of many years ago so there have been advances. Absolutely so. More? I'm impatient, of course it's never quick enough to always want more but we cannot also deny that there has been advances but of course we need to have a lot more, absolutely. Well, many girls our generation grew up reading fairy tale books about if you marry a prince or live happily ever after. You are a living example and of course you are a modern queen with modern challenges as you have told us. What would you tell girls who are watching this interview about this fairy tale? Does it exist? I don't think this fairy tale exists I think it's more hard work than anything else that I've actually done and I tell you it was a banker in New York working 16 hours a day so it's a lot of responsibility and also I think if you have this position there's a responsibility for us to make a change somewhere and I take it very seriously and this is one part of what I do also in the Netherlands I've actually done issues of music education I've also accessed for SMEs to credit which didn't exist before trying to improve the situation of SMEs in the Netherlands I've also just launched the Foundation Mental Health for Youth and I guess I do not stop, that's a little bit what I am but at the same time I think that one is in this position to make a change for the people that surround us. Well the monarchy and the Netherlands on the pressure recently in your role as the UN Special Advocate do you want to reshape the role of a queen for example to show that there's more? I do not have that pretension I don't have that pretension I think that every person does it the way they can and according to their own abilities and according to their own talents I hope that I've actually tried to develop some talents for myself that I can actually make a difference but I do not think that one size will fit in a queen What is the ideal queen according to you I don't think there's an ideal queen and every country has a different system and as time changes my daughter will actually do it in a different way than I have done it so I think the only example one can actually give is to really go for what you love and what you really makes you happy and that gives you energy because by doing that you actually make a difference In the beginning we asked about the two different roles that you have and they're from different kinds of worlds I'm just wondering what experience do you have as a special advocate that really has touched you the most maybe on this trip or maybe in previous trips What has touched me the most is to see the effect that this work has actually had on people and in their lives I've actually done repeat visit to countries and a couple of times I've actually visited the same person I've done that in Bangladesh and also in a couple of other places and to see that this woman that had just one employee and was barely making ends meet and I go there four or five years later and I see she has like 12 employees and she's like the person in the whole village that is actually helping the village elder and she's a woman that really encourages me to do all the work that is needed and I know there are just so many more examples like that And you sometimes take them home with you that you think about the stories Absolutely I do and I always have pictures and I have my elbows with all the all the clients I've actually met so that is really very nice and I know and I follow all the projects that I've actually visited I try to follow them to materialize although they're not that successful but the great majority have been and I think that is really what gives me the energy to do this work Yeah, you're a trade economist you were working at a bank before you met your husband Have you ever imagined if you would have not met the crown prince and have become a queen how your career would have been? Yeah, I don't think it would be because the reason why I got into this is because I actually before I met my husband I started helping some friends on microfinance and that was back in 1998 I forget the dates so it was because of that that I was actually asked by the UN because a couple of people in the microfinance asked me to start developing my ideas on the UN and I was very enticed by it so I would have imagined that I would have actually continued with that to combine it because as we said it's a more than full-time job you have in the Netherlands, you do a lot promoting music in school as you said, mental health issues and then this whole big job Well as I said, I don't do it alone I have a fantastic team in New York that actually helps me out also somebody helps me in the Netherlands and also many partners that when I leave this country they will be following it up for me but at the same time when you are actually doing something you like you find the time and you find the energy because it is what it will give you even more energy and inspire you to every time be a better person and every time to try to focus a little bit more so I think that would be the message that I could give to any person or any girl around the world do what you're good at it gives you a lot of energy because that in turn will develop itself in successes and a lot of reward that answers my first question are you a passionate poverty fighter or a glamorous queen you sound very passionate about this I also Queen Maxima of the Netherlands thank you for talking to Al Jazeera and thank you for paying attention to my work and financial inclusion it is so important