Table of Contents

  • The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) conducts periodic reviews of the individual development co-operation efforts of DAC members. The policies and programmes of each member are critically examined approximately once every five years, with six members examined annually. The OECD Development Co‑operation Directorate provides analytical support, and develops and maintains, in close consultation with the Committee, the methodology and analytical framework – known as the Reference Guide – within which the peer reviews are undertaken.

  • Source: OECD (n.d.), Creditor Reporting System (database), www.oecd.org/dac/stats.

  • Direct democracy and decentralisation are key features of the Swiss Confederation. For instance, citizens can call for referenda on new laws or international treaties. As a federal state, Switzerland’s state powers are divided between the Confederation, cantons and communes. The Federal Council is Switzerland’s executive power and functions as a collective head of state with an annual rotating president. It is made up of the four main parties in the Swiss Parliament: the left-wing Social Democratic Party, the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, the right-of-centre Free Democratic Party and the centre-right Christian Democratic Party. The next federal election will be held in 2019, after which the Parliament will vote on the members of the Federal Council. The composition of the Federal Council is expected to remain unchanged, as incumbent ministers tend to be reconfirmed until they choose to step down.

  • Switzerland is a strong development partner. Its vision, shared across the government, is described in a document called the 2017-20 Dispatch on International Co-operation. The Dispatch sets a comprehensive view of development that goes beyond official development assistance (ODA) and is aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Switzerland notably supports multilateralism to protect global goods and tackle global challenges. It makes its voice heard when debating international norms and standards related to water, climate change, health, migration, finance and trade, and food security. Switzerland also has a strong humanitarian tradition, blending humanitarian, development and policy efforts to prevent and manage fragility.Partners value the expertise, predictability and flexibility of Switzerland’s support. Its quality assurance builds on a culture of results, strong knowledge management, comprehensive risk management and flexible conflict-sensitive programming. Streamlining annual reporting - especially at the country level - should help Switzerland find a better balance between ensuring accountability and supporting decision-making to avoid unnecessary administrative burden.Switzerland understands the world is changing, and partners accordingly with a broad range of actors. While it engages strategically with multilateral organisations, its partnerships with civil society organisations (CSOs) tend to focus on implementing Swiss programmes. This is a missed opportunity to build a strong local civil society that can act as an agent of change. Moreover, despite advocating for effective development co-operation, Switzerland could use country systems more effectively and strengthen its efforts to achieve mutual accountability.As the development co-operation and humanitarian programmes face budget cuts and contend with increasing pressure to prevent migration to Switzerland, a new narrative for development co‑operation and its contribution to shared prosperity is needed. Further efforts to spell out Switzerland’s comparative advantage would help it move away from a strategy that is a sum of priorities set at the level of budget lines, further focusing the programme. It could also help Switzerland better communicate about development to increase public support.

  • This chapter examines Switzerland’s approach to global sustainable development, including its response to global challenges, action to ensure coherence between domestic policies and global sustainable development objectives, and efforts to raise awareness of global development issues at home.Switzerland supports a multilateral system fit to lead the protection of global goods and tackle global challenges. Its voice is heard when debating international norms and standards.Consensus-driven governance enables Switzerland to flag early in the policy-making process whether and how policy choices can affect developing countries, and to act upon it. Although not all policy incoherence can be resolved, a wide dissemination of analyses on policy coherence could boost debates among decision-makers.There is room to improve Switzerland’s communication on development co‑operation, which struggles to shape public perception through an open and contemporary narrative.

  • This chapter assesses the extent to which clear political directives, policies and strategies shape Switzerland’s development co-operation and are in line with international commitments, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.The 2017-20 Dispatch on International Co-operation, supported by new guidance on leaving no one behind, sets a comprehensive vision for development, aligned with the 2030 Agenda, in order to find lasting solutions. The upcoming policies and strategies on gender equality and governance represent an opportunity to develop a transformative approach across the programme.Further efforts to spell out Switzerland’s comparative advantage and rationale would help move away from a strategy that is mainly structured around framework credits. They would help focus the programme further and develop a narrative that is able to respond to the increasing pressure to link the development programme to the objective of preventing migration to Switzerland.Switzerland appreciates that the global landscape is changing and that it requires engaging with new partners. Overall, partnerships are strategic. Nevertheless partnerships with civil society could focus less on implementing Swiss projects and more on building a strong civil society that can act as an agent of change.

  • This chapter considers how international and national commitments drive the volume and allocations of Switzerland’s official development assistance (ODA). It also explores Switzerland’s other financing efforts in support of the 2030 Agenda.Switzerland increased its budget for official development assistance (ODA) between 2014 and 2016, fulfilling the objective set in 2011 by the Swiss Parliament to reach 0.5% of its gross national income (GNI) to ODA. However, the 2017-20 Dispatch departs from this target and ODA dropped considerably in 2017.The impact of Swiss ODA may be weakened by a geographically and thematically dispersed programme. Despite increased budgets committed to gender equality and the environment, funding for cross-cutting issues remains below the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) average.Non-governmental and multilateral organisations are key partners for Switzerland. Switzerland is a strong supporter of non-governmental organisations (NGO) as actors in their own right, but thus far limits core contributions to Swiss and international NGOs. Allocations to multilateral organisations are focused and predictable, and reflect Switzerland’s multilateral strategy. Considering the balance between core contributions to multilateral partners and bilateral co‑operation implemented by multilateral partners would help Switzerland assess whether its approach still contributes to an effective multilateral system.Switzerland uses ODA to leverage development finance by strengthening countries’ capacities to mobilise domestic resources, promoting impact investment and seeking partnerships with the private sector.

  • This chapter reviews Switzerland’s organisational structures and management systems for its development co-operation and the extent to which they are fit for purpose, with appropriate capabilities to deliver on its development objectives.Three institutions share responsibility for implementing the Dispatch on International Co‑operation. Strong co-ordination among these institutions, and with other parts of the administration, has resulted in a substantive whole-of-government approach. However, there is room to move from co-ordination to collaboration in areas where at least two institutions share similar priorities.Switzerland has strong mechanisms to assure the quality of its programme and manage risk strategically. Flexible processes, formal and informal incentives to innovate and a culture open to manage risk strategically led Switzerland to engage innovative projects, partnerships and funding mechanisms.Experienced staff are one of the strengths of Switzerland’s development co-operation. The challenges in designing a medium‑term plan for future expertise needs might weaken this asset.

  • This chapter reviews Switzerland’s approach to delivering in partner countries and through partnerships to determine whether this is in line with the principles of effective development co-operation.Switzerland’s partners value its expertise, reliability, predictability and flexibility, including in fragile contexts. Switzerland’s assets are thorough context analyses, conflict sensitive programme management and flexibility. The upcoming strategies on partnering with the private sector and civil society organisations are an opportunity to better take advantage of the specificity of each partner and design complementary interventions. Despite advocating for development co-operation effectiveness, Switzerland has room to strengthen mutual accountability and use country systems more. Switzerland maintains a close dialogue with partner countries, but more can be done to increase mutual accountability, and ease access to project and budget documentation.

  • This chapter considers how Switzerland plans and manages for results in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), building evidence of what works, and using this to learn and adapt.Switzerland has developed a strong results-oriented culture focused on development outcomes achieved in countries. New standard indicators illustrate its attempt to strengthen result-based management at the corporate level. Balancing the objectives of ensuring accountability with informed decision-making will be the next challenge.Despite a strong evaluation culture and continued support for its partners’ evaluation functions, Switzerland, like other members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), seldom engages in joint evaluations with partner countries. Yet joint evaluations could provide an opportunity to strengthen partners’ evaluation capacities, the ownership of evaluation findings, as well as mutual accountability.Institutional learning - supported by management responses to evaluations and thematic networks - is one of Switzerland’s strengths. Continued efforts to ensure learning remains a priority will be key to avoid network fatigue.

  • This chapter looks at how Switzerland minimises the impact of shocks and crises, as well as how it works to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain human dignity in crisis and disaster settings.Switzerland has a strong humanitarian tradition and has made progress on humanitarian-development-peace coherence. The cross-government Dispatch on International Co-operation and integrated embassies have proved useful in promoting a whole-of-government approach. Coherence with all actors working in a particular context, both inside and outside the Swiss system, could further increase.Switzerland engages in strategic, frank and open partnerships, which it monitors according to the principles of mutual accountability and learning. Switzerland also counts on a broad range of humanitarian tools and fulfils its commitments to localisation according to the “as-local-as-possible” principle. Based on the peer assessment in Ukraine, the peer review team considers that it would be useful for Switzerland to review its continued use of in-kind relief aid, including whether this tool is the most effective use of the humanitarian budget, supports Switzerland moves to fulfil its international commitments, including those in the Grand Bargain, and respects the strong Swiss focus on respecting humanitarian principles.