According to the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, “this will support both countries in implementation of their poverty reduction strategies, which focus on broad-based and sustainable growth”.
The Swiss government praised both countries’ macroeconomic stability, robust economic growth and a substantial increase in their own revenues.
A statement pointed out that “progress has also been made in social issues such as education, health care and water supply”.
However, it noted that “poverty reduction has seen only limited success and both countries still need to catch up considerably, particularly in terms of basic infrastructure and economic diversification”.
Monica Rubiolo of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs explained to AIM that last year the Swiss parliament passed the 2013-2016 Message on International Cooperation paving the way to continue budget support for Mozambique.
The funding will be performance based, and Rubiolo said that “there will be increased attention on governance and the management of natural resources”.
Burkina Faso and Mozambique are priority countries of Switzerland's development cooperation, and the efforts of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) are largely complementary.
Switzerland is one of the countries that last year increased its support to Mozambique, which is against the trend of Mozambique’s 19 Programme Aid Partners (PAPs or G-19 group) who mainly reduced their contributions in 2012.
However, total contributions to Mozambique from the G-19 group actually increased by nine per cent from 1.156 billion US dollars in 2011 to 1.264 billion dollars last year due to increased disbursements from the World Bank, European Commission, African Development Bank, Denmark, Switzerland, France, Italy and Belgium.
Post published in: Africa News