Effective development in a demanding environment

The basis for successfully reaching this objective is provided by our common values that guide our conduct. In international development cooperation, complexity is a reality. Our value map is our reference to ensure that we continue making meaningful and tangible contributions in the future.

We are working in times of turbulent change. International development cooperation faces an increasingly volatile environment fraught with risks, and we must find new solutions and answers.

The new guidelines constitute a framework for our daily work. We have invested much time discussing our values. In doing so, we have laid out our core principles in relation to sustainable development and best practices.

To implement Strategy 2025 efficiently, and together with our employees, we have introduced a role-based leadership model. Responsibility will be distributed more broadly across the organisation and will no longer be determined exclusively by hierarchy. In relation thereto, we have expanded our organisational structure and strengthened two business areas: HR Development and Products and Services Development (see organisation chart). 

The objective of the role-based management model is to make our conduct more agile and entrepreneurial, simplifying lengthy approval processes. This model helps our employees not only to apply themselves more actively, but also to take on more responsibility. Moreover, this management culture enhances cooperation between various departments and offers better development opportunities within our organisation.

Another event constituted a new way forward in 2019: the UK consulting firm “Springfield Centre for Business in Development” joined Swisscontact. This partnership underscores a core element of Swisscontact’s Strategy 2025: the conviction that a carefully thought through environmentally and socially focused private sector approach is often the most effective path to attaining inclusive development.

This partnership broadens and strengthens the services we offer our clients and partners. Swisscontact is now able to offer services in applied research, consulting, coaching, training, and implementation.

For nearly two decades, Swisscontact and the Springfield Centre have worked together as partners on various projects around the world. Together, our two organisations have pioneered a new market development approach: M4P – Making Markets Work for the Poor. This approach has shaped systemic thinking in development around the globe.

Both organisations will be retained. As a subsidiary of Swisscontact, the Springfield Centre will continue to operate as a stand-alone UK-based company. All jobs will be retained. Since joining Swisscontact in June, our colleagues at the Springfield Centre have built very good relations with Swisscontact, solidifying our many shared values.

In 2019, Swisscontact implemented more than 100 projects and mandates across 38 countries. For this annual report, we have prepared a presentation of two of these in text, images and video to give you a real glimpse of how we implement our slogan “We create opportunities” in real life.

In rural Niger, young people have few opportunities to complete a vocational education. Youth with an education, however, have better prospects of finding a job. On behalf of SDC, Swisscontact, therefore, developed training courses that reflect the needs of young people and those of the local economy.

A Swisscontact project in Cambodia motivates farmers to change their agricultural techniques. By applying new practices, they achieve higher yields because of increased soil fertility. This change in agricultural practices also has a positive effect on the climate as it stops the cutting of old-growth forest for expanding farmland.