Visit Swiss Cooperation Office websites.
"Every mine I clear saves a life"
Focus on reconstruction and earthquakepreparedness
SDC is cooperating with itspartnersin the earthquakezone in the reconstructionof schools, healthcare centres, and farms. In addition, they are promoting earthquake preparedness and earthquake-proof
building methods.
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.
On 14 March 2008, in the frame of the Federal Council’s decision to reduce the number of priority countries, it was decided that Pakistan would no longer be a priority country for the Swiss
development cooperation by the end of 2011. Hence the current development programme will be progressively closed; however, some of its components will be reoriented under a new Afghanistan-Pakistan
Regional Programme, for which a yearly budget of approximately 5 millions CHF was approved for the Pakistan – North West Frontier Province component (Federal Council’s decision 05.06.09). The
Humanitarian Aid component is not affected by these decisions.
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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 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 activities take the form of a reconstruction programme in favour of victims of the 2005 earthquake. It also supports measures to improve the living conditions of refugees and
internally displaced persons.£
Its programmes centre on:
- Rebuilding schools and health centres to improve the living conditions of population groups affected by the earthquake in the districts of Mansehra and Batagram (partly financed by UNICEF).
- Prevention and preparedness by helping the government to set up a disaster-management system and training local urban search and rescue (USAR) teams.
- Improving the living conditions of refugees and internally displaced persons in the aftermath of local conflicts, by means of financial contributions to UNHCR and ICRC projects,
and missions by Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit experts as part of UN aid activities.
The SDC works mainly with the following partners:
- local, national and international non-governmental organisations: Intercooperation, 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 Program (UNDP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), UN-Habitat, the International Labour Organization (ILO); the World Bank
- bilateral donor agencies (such as Norway, Canada, Netherlands, Great-Britain);
Background information Pakistan
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| Source: World Bank's World Development Indicators 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Background information provided by the BBC
Local SDC contact address:
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Pakistan (Islamabad) |
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Swiss Cooperation Office Pakistan |
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| Phone | +925 122 79280 |
| Fax | +925 128 24872 |
| islamabad@sdc.net | |
| Website | www.swiss-cooperation.admin.ch/pakistan/ |
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Additional Information and Documents Here, you will find more publications, links, documents and articles about Swiss development cooperation and humanitarian aid in this country. |