Press release

Switzerland is living at the world's expense

06.04.2022, 2030 Agenda

Dominik Gross

Expert on finance and tax policy

+41 31 390 93 35 dominik.gross@alliancesud.ch

Laura Ebneter

Expert on international cooperation

+41 31 390 93 32 laura.ebneter@alliancesud.ch

Switzerland is living at the world's expense

Switzerland is not on course for a sustainable world. That's the verdict from Platform Agenda 2030 in its new report, out today. It is calling upon the Federal Council to show more leadership in the transformation needed to halve poverty, protect the climate and human rights, and hold the financial sector to account.

Platform Agenda 2030 is a network of more than 50 organisations from the fields of the environment, development cooperation, human rights, sustainable business, gender, peace, housing and work. Seven years after the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted in New York it has been taking stock. The verdict? Switzerland is not on course to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We are living at the world's expense. Yet to date the Federal Council has not presented any strategy for managing the vital transformation to an economy that respects planetary boundaries. In Switzerland and around the world, people are prevented from exercising their basic rights. Hunger and poverty are rising.

To achieve the 17 SDGs all policy fields must be clearly focused on the Goals and on the ambitions of the 2030 Agenda. We are calling for rapid, efficient action to tackle the deficits that have been identified. Part of this must be a strategy that maps out how poverty in Switzerland can be halved by 2030. Or an ambitious biodiversity action plan that commits enough funding to halting species loss. The financial markets also need statutory frameworks so that investment becomes a factor protecting biodiversity and human rights. And there must be greater engagement to counter militarisation and support human security around the world.

Platform Agenda 2030 is calling on the Federal Council to show more leadership for sustainable development. It must find the courage required to develop solutions that are truly transformational. Cosmetic amendments that merely throw an SDG-hued cloak over business as usual are not enough. Real transformation is needed to make the move to a sustainable society.

Platform Agenda 2030 is presenting its civil society report at the UN High Level Political Forum, that is taking place from July 5 to 15 in New York. In doing so it is offering its own analyses and recommendations for action as a counterpart to Switzerland's official Voluntary National Review, which Federal Councillor Ignatio Cassis will submit to the Forum on 12 July. We invite the Federal Council to work with us in revising the national 2030 Sustainable Development Strategy and the associated Action Plan.

Platform Agenda 2030's civil society report is available online to download

Article, Global

Spillovers: Switzerland's inglorious role

17.03.2022, 2030 Agenda

Switzerland's many negative spillovers include environmental pollution, arms exports and tax evasion – and they are undermining international efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Laura Ebneter

Expert on international cooperation

Spillovers: Switzerland's inglorious role

International Spillover Index
© Sustainable Development Report 2021

The globalised exchange of goods, capital and information has increased exponentially in recent years. This exchange also means that supposedly local decisions can have global implications. The year-round consumption of tomatoes, cucumbers and aubergines in Switzerland, for example, directly impacts Europe's vegetable gardens in southern Spain, where massive amounts of groundwater and pesticides are used to produce food under dubious conditions. Such effects are called 'spillovers'. The term is applied when specific actions in one country produce adverse effects in other countries and further hamper their progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

The UN 2030 Agenda, which encompasses 17 Sustainable Development Goals, attempts to take account of these spillover effects. In today's interdependent and interconnected world, all UN Member States in 2015 committed to implementing the 2030 Agenda. How can individual countries implement the Agenda in a globalised world? There is no way around spillovers in that process.

In the Sustainable Development Report (SDR) published annually by authors associated with US economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, all 193 UN Member States are ranked according to their spillover performance. Spillovers are classified into the three dimensions of 'Environmental & social impacts embodied into trade', 'Economy & finance', and 'Security'. In the latest 2021 ranking, Switzerland occupies an inglorious 161st place. The only countries more poorly rated for their spillover effects are the United Arab Emirates, Luxembourg, Guyana and Singapore. In the European ranking, Switzerland comes 30th among 31 countries. How could Switzerland, the model pupil, possibly do so badly?

Environmental and social impacts embodied into trade

Trade-related spillovers encompass international effects bound up with the use of natural resources, environmental pollution, and the social impacts stemming from goods and services consumption. Switzerland does very badly when it comes to imports of virtual water, nitrogen, nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide, and endangering the biodiversity of ecosystems. These partly invisible by-products arise all along the value chain, in connection with the production and use of pesticides and fertilisers, irrigation, and the use of combustion engines for production and transport, among many other things. Anyone who is reluctant to believe the international figures may also refer to MONET 2030, the Federal Statistical Office's national indicator system. There too, nothing foreshadows any reduction of the substantial material footprint or the greenhouse gas footprint.

Small, resource-poor countries are obviously dependent on goods and services from abroad. This makes it all the more important for these trading relations to be sustainable. The Federal Council's response to an interpellation by National Councillor Roland Fischer (Green Liberal Group, glp) on reducing Switzerland's spillover effects is as modest as its reduction of its footprint. Switzerland is advocating for the UN to set ambitious goals for sustainable consumption and production patterns. The country is also championing the circular economy, and relevant measures are to be drawn up by the end of 2022. It remains to be seen whether they will bring about any significant reduction of Switzerland's material and greenhouse gas footprint.

International efforts to establish sustainable value chains are much more promising. The recently adopted UN Human Rights Council Resolution is expected to formalise the basic right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment (see also here). France's loi relative au devoir de vigilance and Germany's Lieferkettengesetz show both countries to be pursuing similar aims. By comparison, it is becoming clear that the counterproposal to the Responsible Business Initiative will not "achieve" much more than glossy brochures of no consequence, put out by the marketing departments of major corporations.

Economy and finance

As regards ‘Economy and finance’, Switzerland's performance is poor to very poor for all four indicators. The problems are obvious. At 0.48 per cent of gross national income (GNI), official development assistance is still below the 0.7 per cent enshrined in the 2030 Agenda. The Swiss financial centre remains a safe haven for tax dodgers. Automatic exchange of information on financial accounts is taking place on a limited basis only. And finally, multinational corporations in Switzerland are still able to optimise taxes at the expense of the poorest. In the absence of specific measures to combat tax avoidance and profit-shifting by companies to low-tax jurisdictions, Switzerland is failing to fulfil its responsibility toward poorer countries.

Security

The third area, that of ‘security’, encompasses the potential negative and destabilising repercussions of arms exports on poor countries. In this area too, Switzerland performs rather poorly owing to its weapons exports. Since the SDR was published, however, there has been an initial step in the right direction, in that the counterproposal to the Corrective Initiative (Korrektur-Initiative) ensures that no war materiel is exported to countries engaged in civil war or where there are systematic and grave human rights abuses. The export regime is being enshrined in law, thereby placing the necessary democratic control over war materiel exports in the hands of the people and the Parliament.

The significant role of little Switzerland

The Sustainable Development Report attracts repeated criticism for insufficient and incomplete data and the choice of indicators. Yet this should not distract from the global responsibility incumbent on Switzerland's lawmakers, domestic economy, and people. All stakeholders must ensure that Switzerland's policy decisions contribute to global sustainable development and not to water pollution, poverty or population displacements. In the final analysis, not only do spillovers from rich OECD countries adversely impact other countries, they also hamper international efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda.

Laura Ebneter, JPO at Alliance Sud

global

The Alliance Sud magazine analyses and comments on Switzerland's foreign and development policies. "global" is published four times a year (in german and french) and can be subscribed to free of charge.

Article

«Inequalities are rooted in the system»

21.06.2021, Finance and tax policy, 2030 Agenda

Stefano Zamagni, Italian economist and President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, explains in an interview why a new beginning with the civil economy can no longer be postponed.

2030 Agenda

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Alliance Sud advocates for Swiss policies that are coherent across all subject areas and systematically aligned with the 2030 Agenda.

What it is about >

Press release Switzerland is living at the world's expense

06.04.2022 2030 Agenda

Article Spillovers: Switzerland's inglorious role

17.03.2022 2030 Agenda

Switzerland's many negative spillovers include environmental pollution, arms exports and tax evasion – and they are undermining international efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Article Defeating a hurricane with a fan

07.12.2021 2030 Agenda

In his books on the African continent and the countries of Latin America, Sami Tchak explores the battle against poverty, modern slavery and prostitution, among other topics. Interview with Lavinia Sommaruga.

What it is about

Alliance Sud advocates for Swiss policies that are coherent across all subject areas and systematically aligned with the 2030 Agenda. Adopted by 193 Heads of State in the autumn of 2015, this framework for a new "world domestic policy" lays out 17 Sustainable Development Goals. They represent a lasting and equitable balance between the social, environmental and economic realms – today and for future generations. In this respect, the onus rests equally on the North and the South; global and national interests ought not to be played off against one another. In conjunction with Swiss non-governmental organisations, Alliance Sud is calling for the coherent and comprehensive implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

Alliance Sud is a member of the Platform Agenda 2030

Article, Global

Defeating a hurricane with a fan

07.12.2021, 2030 Agenda

Sami Tchak, pseudonym of Sadamba Tcha-Koura (1960), is a Togolese writer who studied philosophy at the University of Lomé.
© Francesco Gattoni

global: You have written an article published in a new Italian-language volume that recounts the history of Africa beyond the stereotypes. In your contribution you reflect on the connection between language and literature and focus on the central topic in relations between Europe and the African continent: colonisation. Can you tell us something about that?

Sami Tchak: My research is premised on the notion that literature emanates from the heart of a people and is created in the dominant language or one of the languages they speak. However, African literature as we know it today arose mainly from European languages, the languages of the colonisers. Admittedly there are writings in African languages but they are barely known internationally or even nationally. The problem that I see is that our literature is too strongly foreign-oriented and is not locally rooted enough.

Could it be said that the colonial past is the unifying feature of the African continent with all its diversity?
The colonial past is not the binding element for African traditions, as these civilisations, societies and languages maintained links amongst themselves long before the colonisers arrived. What binds these diverse identities is what I would call their spirituality. The content of their beliefs, the connection between the living and the dead – that is all similar. One could speak of the spiritual cultural unity of an extremely diverse continent. In my novels I describe my human impressions, which I have garnered, among other places, in Latin America. In the novel “Al Capone le Malien”, for example, I talk about the ancient Malian kingdom, of which the inherent logic was similar to that of all ancient kingdoms of the African continent, in other words before colonialism became a “new” common feature. Or rather, the commonality of these so-called colonial or postcolonial States is the western way of thinking that was imposed on them.

You have also visited Latin America: are there commonalities there with Africa’s colonial past?
Yes. The first commonality is to be found in the African population groups which also found their way into this region through slavery. They have preserved elements of their African culture of origin. They no longer speak the original languages, of course, but have preserved traditions and religions like voodoo or Candomblé. These Latin American countries often confront problems similar to those facing African States, for example dictators.

In your view, which are the problems that should be high on the agenda of lobbying and advocacy NGOs like Alliance Sud, which for the past 50 years has been championing the cause of the poorest in the South?
That is a delicate subject. When we talk about the poorest people in the South, we often overlook the systemic components. Poverty is an outcome of today’s world order and it will continue – no matter how hard we try – for as long as society does not change. And this is not predictable, because the capitalist system as it currently operates is reinforcing these inequalities and hence perpetuating poverty. This does not mean, however that we should be mere passive observers. In one of my books, I liken the fight against poverty to the attempt to overcome a hurricane with a hand-held fan. To an outside observer, this may seem laughable, but precisely because there are people who believe that they can vanquish a hurricane with a hand-held fan, the world can change.

And this only through structural change?
Direct aid to poor people does not necessarily bring changes with it. Yet we must help these people as a matter of urgency! But the real struggle is managing to convince Western countries to rethink their relations, for example, with African countries. These relations must be made equitable.

Can associations, non-governmental organisations and foundations therefore exert pressure on States (both Western and African) to usher in a global transformation?
I don’t know. As long as the system remains the same, it will produce poverty. The system needs poverty. Today’s system works because there are poor people. All around the world we are witnessing the emergence of a phenomenon which I call “disposable labour”. The expression is used in Colombia, for example – I write about it in my novel titled “Filles de Mexico”. It refers to poor enslaved people who are fungible. This means they may come from anywhere in the world, to be exploited anywhere. The new poor are even willing to pay to be exploited. When people pay to cross the oceans, then they are paying to be enslaved! For as long as there is no change in the relations between States, the well-known problems will not be solved. It is in national and international politics, in worldwide geopolitics that the changes must take place.

global

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