MDGs: Switzerland challenged

Even though the outcomes so far are somewhat mixed, the millennium goals are still achievable, writes United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in his report «Keeping the promise» addressed to the September UN Summit. It will take enormous efforts from all the parties, however.

Many developing countries have focused too little on poverty reduction; numerous industrial countries have neither increased their aid sufficiently nor worked credibly to bring about improved framework conditions for development. Global crises (financial and economic crisis, food crisis, climate change) engendered in the North have wiped out the successes achieved in the South (see below)

Switzerland too is facing its challenges. It has indeed made some efforts to promote the MDGs. For example, it invests more than other countries in rural development, in that way helping to overcome hunger (MDG 1). Its practice-oriented cooperation with local authorities and civil society is yielding successes, in the water sector for example (MDG 7). Despite this, the interim findings are mixed.

Development assistance not increased sufficiently

First, Switzerland has increased its development assistance only minimally. Aid has indeed increased from 1.5 to 2.5 billion francs (+64%) since 2000. Yet the figures are misleading, since at that time they included neither spending on asylum seekers in the country nor the totality of debt cancellations – unlike today. When these expenditures are left aside, Switzerland’s 2009 figure does not reach 0.47 per cent of gross national income (GNI) but 0.36 per cent (2000: 0.34%). A look at spending on aid in the South and East and on humanitarian assistance is revealing: it has increased by a mere 363 million francs (+27%) since the year 2000.

Waning emphasis on poverty reduction

Second, for years now, Switzerland has been reserving only a quarter of its overall aid for the poorest countries. On top of this, in 2008 it expanded the remit of its development cooperation programme without providing additional resources for that purpose. Not only is it now required to combat poverty, but must also contribute to «development-friendly globalization». The result is that the MDGs are slipping into the background. Here are two examples:
For the purposes of the MDGs, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) focuses on its bilateral priority countries, which are amongst the world's poorest. Yet it is neglecting these countries. In just four cases is it in fact investing of the 20 million francs per year that it described in its own Message on countries of the South 2009 as the minimum for making a meaningful contribution to the MDGs. On the other hand, under the theme of «development-friendly globalization», it is stepping up cooperation with emerging countries like China or Brazil, for example under the new global climate programme, the annual budget for which is 20 million francs.
By the same token, the State Secretariat for the Economy (Seco) is withdrawing from the poorest countries to concentrate instead on more advanced developing countries with which Switzerland is keen to deepen its trade ties. Its justification for this new orientation is that poverty needs to be reduced in these countries too. Yet its economic aid is achieving very little in these cases because it is bypassing peripheral regions, micro enterprises and women.

Insufficient development policy coherence

Lastly, Switzerland has done very little to fashion its overall policy so as not to hamper the social and economic advancement of poor countries and their peoples. Some headway has been made in the restitution of «stolen assets», and in regard to goods imports from the poorest countries, which are no longer subject to duties and quotas.
Apart from this, hardly anything has changed in development policy coherence. At the multilateral and bilateral levels Switzerland continues to protect its economic interests without regard for the developing countries. In the realm of patent protection it is preventing access to drugs and restricting small farmers in their use of seeds. It is insisting on the liberalization of the trade in industrial goods whilst ignoring the enormous significance of import duties for developing countries as a source of funds with which to reduce poverty, foment national industries and create jobs (see article page XY).
The most recent progress in Switzerland's international tax policy (administrative assistance, information sharing) has left the developing countries at the back of the queue. They are still losing billions in income on account of tax avoidance and tax fraud. Neither is Switzerland's immigration policy becoming any more accommodative towards them – the borders are closed to people from the South. In the international financial agencies Switzerland is blocking moves to grant appreciably more influence to emerging and developing countries, and refusing to relax lending conditions that limit their policy space.

Homework for Switzerland

To make a specific contribution in this the final sprint towards the millennium goals, much remains from Switzerland to do:

• Distinctly more resources are needed. The top priority is to rapidly increase development assistance to 0.5 per cent of GNI. The additional funds should be targeted at the poorest countries and more specifically at the most disadvantaged population groups, in particular women and indigenous peoples.
• Expeditious measures are needed to improve development policy coherence (see interview on page XY). More particularly, cooperation with developing countries in tax matters must be improved and tax evasion by wealthy individuals and companies prevented.
• The realization of human rights should be central to development cooperation and to Swiss policy in multilateral organizations and in international and bilateral negotiations.
  
  

Article published in: Alliance Sud News No. 64, Summer 2010

Box

10 years of MDGs: Mixed findings

In 2000, the heads of all UN Member States signed off on eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). They are to be achieved by 2015 and should halve extreme poverty and hunger, guarantee primary schooling for all children, improve the situation of women and girls, reduce infant and maternal mortality, stop the spread of HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis, as well as improve access to clean drinking water and sanitary facilities. In MDG 8, the industrialized countries committed to assisting the poor countries to that end by means of debt forgiveness, more and better development aid and a fairer trading and financial system.
Ten years on, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon makes a mixed assessment. Considerable partial successes have been scored with regard to income poverty, schooling for children and access to drinking water. On the other hand, achievements are falling woefully short when it comes to maternal mortality, the provision of sanitary facilities, and gender equality. The number of hungry people again topped one billion in 2009. The situation is particularly precarious in many African countries, and more so in those with conflicts.  Yet even these countries are making progress, although they are starting out from a considerably lower level than other countries.
Things are looking bleak for MDG 8: The WTO round of negotiations, which was expected to bring improvements to the South, is deadlocked.  Development assistance has not been increased to 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) as promised. In 1992 it averaged 0.44%, in 2009, 0.48%. Only one third of that flowed into the poorest countries. Lastly, the global crises caused by the rich countries (financial crisis, food crisis, climate change) have again reversed the MDG successes already scored.
Pepo Hofstetter, Alliance Sud

The Millennium Development Goals Report 2010

Box published in: Alliance Sud News No. 64, Summer 2010