Visit Swiss Cooperation Office websites.
The floods which quite literally inundated Pakistan in summer 2010 were the greatest natural disaster in the country's history. After the emergency relief delivered and the measures taken to assist the affected populations in getting through the winter, the SDC is planning a number of reconstruction projects in the domains of civil engineering and water.
Pakistan
Website of the SDC in Pakistan: www.swiss-cooperation.admin.ch/pakistan/
Switzerland’s development
cooperation with Pakistan began in 1966 and for the past 40 years has focused on alleviating poverty and supporting disadvantaged population groups. The SDC has also provided extensive humanitarian
assistance in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, after the 2005 earthquake and more recently in the framework of the Internally Displaced People’s crisis.
Switzerland’s development cooperation with Pakistan began in 1966. For the past 40 years it has focused on alleviating poverty and supporting disadvantaged population groups. The SDC has also provided extensive humanitarian assistance to residents of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake and, more recently, to people displaced inside Pakistan due to local conflicts.
On 14 March 2008, following a decision by the Federal Parliament to reduce the number of partner countries for Swiss development cooperation, it was decided that Pakistan would stop being a
priority country by the end of 2011. The Swiss government’s humanitarian aid is excluded from this decision. The current development programme will be progressively handed over to local. However,
some of its components will be incorporated into the new Regional Programme Hindukush (Afghanistan-Pakistan border region), for which a yearly budget of approximately CHF 5 million was approved in
June 2009. The main objectives of this programme are to improve the living conditions of the population and to promote local conflict resolution and local governance.
| Swiss International Cooperation | 2011 |
2012 |
2013* |
|---|---|---|---|
| SDC | |||
| Bilateral development cooperation | 9.23 | 7.58 | – |
| Humanitarian aid | 7.34 | 5.17 | 9.46 |
| State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) | |||
| Economic Cooperation and Development | – | – | – |
| Total SDC/SECO | 16.57 | 12.75 | 9.46 |
| Other Federal Offices | |||
| FDFA Human Security Division and Directorate of International Law | – | – | 0.08 |
| Total other Federal Offices | – | – | 0.08 |
| Cantons and municipalities | 0.10 | .. | .. |
| Total | 16.67 | 12.75 | 9.54 |
SDC figures excluding program contributions to NGOs
.. = figures not available | – = nil or amount < 5'000 CHF
Development Cooperation: Priorities
Switzerland’s long-term commitment in Pakistan focuses on reducing poverty, fighting discrimination and supporting disadvantaged population groups.
The SDC’s activities are built on two main pillars:
- Improving governance, with an emphasis on strengthening decentralisation and local governance as well as improving the rights of women and children (e.g. Strengthening Democratic Governance in Pakistan; Women Law and Status Programme; Combating Child Labour).
- Increasing income by improving the management of natural resources of the poor (e.g Livelihoods Programme; Integrated Natural Resources Management).
Humanitarian Aid: Priorities
The SDC’s humanitarian aid activities include a reconstruction programme for the benefit of victims of the floods of 2010 as well as measures to improve the living conditions of refugees and
internally displaced persons.
The Programme:
- Rebuilding schools in the Swat Valley destroyed by floods or militants, thus improving access to education, in particular for young girls.
- Ensuring supplies of clean drinking water over the long term by rebuilding destroyed drinking water systems; awareness building projects for the government; disinfecting wells and groundwater pumps and their maintenance.
- Improving the living conditions of refugees and internally displaced persons by means of financial contributions to the World Food Programme (WFP) and to UNHCR and ICRC projects; the deployment of experts from the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit to assist relief efforts of the UN or other international organisations.
_____________________________________________________________________________
The SDC works mainly with the following partners:
- local, national and international non-governmental organisations: HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation, The Swiss Red Cross (SRC), The Asia Foundation, South Asia Partnership (SAP-PK), Shirkat Gah, Transparency International Pakistan
- the government of Pakistan and the government of the North West Frontier Province
- multilateral organisations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), UN OCHA, UN Habitat, the World Food Programme, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the World Bank and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
- bilateral donors (Norway, Canada, the Netherlands, Great Britain)
Background information Pakistan
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Source: World Bank's World Development Indicators 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Background information provided by the BBC
Local SDC contact address:
|
Pakistan (Islamabad) |
|
|
Swiss Cooperation Office Pakistan |
|
| Phone | +925 122 79280 |
| Fax | +925 128 24872 |
| islamabad@sdc.net | |
| Website | www.swiss-cooperation.admin.ch/pakistan/ |
 |
Additional Information and Documents Here, you will find more publications, links, documents and articles about Swiss development cooperation and humanitarian aid in this country. |