(Partial) success for 0.7% Petition
After the Senate, the Swiss House of Representatives too in its winter session has decided by a surprisingly clear majority to contemplate raising development assistance to 0.5 per cent of gross national product (GNP). The Government must now work out the corresponding messages and lines of credit. A final decision will be taken next year.
The decision by both Houses of Parliament is an important partial success for the «0.7% – Together against Poverty» petition, which was coordinated by Alliance Sud and supported by more than 70 organisations. It was submitted at the end of May with over 200,000 signatures, and called for development aid to be increased to 0.7 per cent of GNP, as the industrialised countries had promised in support of the UN Millennium Development Goals. The high number of signatures shows that development assistance is well anchored amongst the population, and also made an impression on the Parliament.
Yet an effective increase in development aid is not yet assured. The Parliament has indeed supported the principle of an increase. However, it will make a final decision only once the Senate has outlined where it would like to invest additional resources and where the funds will come from. By then the impacts of the financial crisis on Switzerland's economic growth should be clearer, as will the scale of the additional funds needed to reach 0.5% of gross national product by 2015. Alliance Sud will continue to militate for an effective increase in development aid and for the meaningful use of the additional funds.
Pepo Hofstetter, Alliance Sud
Article published in: Alliance Sud News, no. 58, Winter 2008/09
