Switzerland continues its commitment to the United Nations Development Programme
Bern, 01.07.2015 - The Federal Council has confirmed Switzerland’s commitment to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with the country’s current annual contribution of CHF 60 million set to continue from 2015 to 2017.
In addition to the World Bank, which is a UN specialised agency, the UNDP has for years been Switzerland’s most important partner institution within the UN system. The UNDP’s fields of activity and development goals are fully consistent with the concerns and priorities of Swiss development cooperation. Today’s Federal Council decision grants the UNDP CHF 60 million annually for 2015, 2016 and 2017. This corresponds to the current level of financial assistance being provided.
The UNDP’s mission is to substantially reduce poverty, inequality and exclusion in developing countries. To this end, the UNDP helps countries to formulate and implement their own development strategies and programmes more effectively. The UNDP’s priorities are sus-tainable development, building up and consolidating broad-based democratic governance and strengthening the resilience of recipient countries. Working together with other United Nations organisations, governments, non-governmental organisations and the private sector, the UNDP continues to play a key role in coordinating the UN development system and its reform process, especially with regard to the new post-2015 sustainability agenda. Today, the UNDP is active in more than 170 countries.
For a number of years, Switzerland’s international cooperation has been focusing increasingly on fragile contexts. Part of this approach involves collaborating with the UNDP. In turn, the UNDP is providing fragile states with greater support, particularly in crisis prevention and recovery. By helping to mitigate injustice, poverty and armed conflicts that can have implica-tions for global security, Switzerland is also protecting its own economic and foreign policy interests. Through its contributions, Switzerland is able to shape the UNDP’s policies and strategies.
Switzerland can look back at what has been a fruitful long-term collaboration. Examples of the successful partnership between the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) and the UNDP include a continuing education project in Albania that has, over the past two years, provided around 700 young men and women with specific help in integrating successfully into the labour market, and the implementation of measures to minimise the impact of climate change in Nicaragua – where flood interception schemes have been introduced and some 2,000 people have been trained as experts in natural disaster prevention.
Not least thanks to Switzerland’s help, the UNDP promptly scaled up its capacity following the two major earthquakes in Nepal in April and May, in order to contribute to the UN’s immediate humanitarian effort and address the rapid reconstruction process in coordinated fashion. Besides organising the UN system on the ground, the UNDP is, on the one hand, helping the Nepalese government to plan and implement the recovery. On the other hand, the UNDP is assisting the affected population directly, e.g. through paid-work programmes that accelerate the rebuilding work and help to provide a basic income to families who, apart from no longer having a roof over their heads, have in many cases also lost their livelihoods.
Address for enquiries
FDFA Information
Tel. +41 58 462 31 53
info@eda.admin.ch
Publisher
The Federal Council
https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start.html
Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
https://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/home.html
