The additional funds – SFr404 million ($399 million) over two years – are to be used for climate and water projects, according to a foreign ministry statement on Friday.
Poverty reduction remains the main task of development cooperation worldwide, and a prosperous and stable world is of key importance to Switzerland, the statement added.
Parliament is due to begin debate on the bill in the winter session.
Switzerland currently spends 0.47 per cent of GNP on development aid – slightly below the average of other industrialised countries.
Development aid organisations have criticised the government for delaying the increase because of financial constraints and spending cuts.
However the figure is still below the target of 0.7 per cent set by the United Nations. The world body is due to discuss global efforts to halve poverty at a plenary session later this month.
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Cabinet agrees to boost development aid
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The foreign ministry said a bill would be prepared for an additional SFr404 million ($369 million) for the next two years. The funds would be used mainly for climate and water cooperation projects. Parliament is expected to discuss the issue in the winter session. Initially the cabinet refused to increase aid because of financial constraints…
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In her opening speech to the 2010 Ambassadors Conference in the resort of Interlaken in the Bernese Oberland, Calmy-Rey said international cooperation was key. This certainly did not mean a loss of independence or an abandonment of sovereignty, she stressed. The Ambassadors Conference brings together around 200 representatives of Switzerland abroad, including ambassadors, consuls general…
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The foreign ministry says it now has a strategy for the withdrawal of Swiss development workers from the communist country by the end of 2011. In 2008 the government approved a motion by parliamentarian Gerhard Pfister demanding a halt to development aid in response to North Korea’s continuing nuclear ambitions. “The atomic weapon programme violates…
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The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recommends that Switzerland should aim for 0.5 per cent of its Gross National Income (GNI) for aid despite financial constraints. Eckhard Deutscher of the OECD Assistance Committee, who presented the findings of the report in Bern on Monday, listed six positive aspects and six critical points. Switzerland…
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But speaking before the annual conference of the humanitarian aid unit of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Calmy-Rey employed imagery from a long-standing conflict. “We were all shocked to see these images,” the foreign minister said in Bern against a backdrop of images from January’s conflict in the Gaza Strip. Apart from…
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Massive damage to streets, railways, homes and bridges. Drinking water is contaminated, threatening the health of many people, particularly the old and the young. More than three million people are believed to be affected by the flooding in northwestern Pakistan.
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