Alliance Sud
Alliance Sud is the joint development work group of six Swiss aid organizations: Swissaid , Fastenopfer , Bread for All , Helvetas , Caritas and HEKS . It has the legal form of a simple company.
Its aim is to influence the policy of the Swiss government towards developing countries in favor of the poor people in these countries. To this end, the organization carries out lobbying work towards politics, administration and business as well as intensive public relations work on development policy aspects of Swiss foreign and domestic policy. As a nationwide organization with headquarters in Bern, it has regional offices in French-speaking Switzerland and in Italian-speaking Switzerland.
Origin and idea
In 1971 four Swiss development organizations (Swissaid, Fastenopfer, Bread for All and Helvetas) founded the working group of aid organizations (since 2005: Alliance Sud). The idea behind this was that it is not enough to help poor countries help themselves. At the same time, the policies of the industrialized countries would have to be changed to enable development in the south. In 1992 Caritas Switzerland and in 2003 the aid organization of the Protestant Churches Switzerland (HEKS) joined them.
Edited topics
The organization is active on those topics which the organization believes are central to Switzerland's relationship with developing countries.
Development cooperation
The organization critically monitors the content of Swiss development policy and its quantitative scope. The organization is working to ensure that Switzerland increasingly aligns itself with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and increases its spending on development cooperation to 0.7 percent of gross domestic income (GNI). Alliance Sud wrote a Swiss position paper in 2013 on the UN's post-2015 development agenda, the goals for sustainable development. In 2007/2008, Alliance Sud, together with over seventy other organizations, carried out a public campaign “Together against poverty” and collected over 200,000 signatures for increasing Swiss development aid. It was partially successful: in spring 2011, the Swiss parliament decided to increase development aid to at least 0.5 percent GNI by 2015 (in 2010 it was 0.41 percent). In 2012, parliament reaffirmed the decision.
Fair trade relations
The organization advocates the right of developing countries to protect their own producers - for example in agriculture or industry - from cheap imports from industrialized countries. She also advocates abolishing export subsidies in rich countries and severely restricting patent protection, especially in the health sector.
Tax justice
Developing countries lose a lot of tax revenue through tax evasion and unfair tax competition. In Switzerland, tax evasion is not a criminal offense (only tax fraud), which is why it has so far not provided any international legal assistance with this offense. In response to pressure from various countries, however, in 2009 it agreed to at least comply with OECD standards. The working group is committed to ensuring that these standards are also applied to developing countries. The organization also requires the introduction of a general exchange of information on tax matters. In order to combat unfair tax practices around the world, the organization co-founded the International Tax Justice Network in 2002 . In 2013 this network was restructured and renamed the Global Alliance for Tax Justice.
Climate justice
The working group is committed to ensuring that Switzerland fulfills the obligations of the Kyoto Protocol (CO 2 reduction) and advocates a concise international successor agreement that limits global warming to a maximum of 2 degrees . In addition, Switzerland should increasingly help poor countries financially and with technology transfer to cope with the consequences of climate change. The organization says it works closely with environmental organizations and is a member of the Swiss Climate Alliance and the Climate Action Network Europe.
Business and human rights
As part of the NGO alliance Law Without Borders, the organization advocates legal provisions that oblige companies based in Switzerland to respect human rights and the environment worldwide. In the summer of 2012, the Alliance submitted a petition to the Swiss government and parliament, which had been signed by over 135,000 people and which requires binding rules for corporations. It is one of the supporting organizations for the corporate responsibility initiative and supports it.
Alliance Sud InfoDoc
InfoDoc, its own documentation centers in Bern and Lausanne, are available to the public. They are the only publicly accessible specialist offices on development issues and developing countries. They provide information on over 500 development-related topics from poverty to hunger to forced labor; on the social, political and economic situation in the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America; for cooperation between Switzerland and the countries of the South and East as well as with international organizations. The services provided by the documentation centers include the “Globalia” link directory, the library catalog , commissioned research and media monitoring.
Publications
The organization sends out an electronic newsletter eight times a year and publishes the GLOBAL + magazine four times a year .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ SDG (English page of the UN)
- ↑ Swiss position paper, PDF, 2.4 MB
- ^ Climate Action Network Europe
- ↑ Law without borders
- ↑ Daniel Hitzig: YES to the corporate responsibility initiative. AllianceSud, July 14, 2020, accessed on August 24, 2020 .
- ↑ Globalia ( Memento of the original from January 22nd, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Library catalog
- ↑ Newsletter
- ↑ Global +
