Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation

Organizational profile: The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is the agency for international cooperation of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). The SDC is responsible for the overall coordination with other federal authorities of development and cooperation with Eastern Europe as well as for humanitarian aid delivered by the Swiss Confederation. The SDC's activities are designed to reduce poverty and hardship, curb global risks, and promote development that preserves natural resources for future generations.  The SDC focuses its efforts on fragile and conflict-affected regions, where almost two-thirds of the world’s poor will be living by 2030, because there can be no peace without sustainable development, and there can be no sustainable development without peace. SDC operates through partnerships and mandates with state institutions, multilateral organizations, NGOs, and the private sector through public-private partnerships. The SDC is one of the main Swiss government entities involved in delivering Switzerland's official development assistance, alongside the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).

The Global Programme Climate Change and Environment (GPCCE) division's activities in the sustainable forestry area are guided by three priorities:

1. Global forest policy and its integration in Swiss forest policy Supporting global thematic forest partnerships; having a proactive influence on the development of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and related global processes in this field; coordinating with other Swiss federal offices.

2. Operational forest programme with three regional initiatives on the role of forests and rural areas for climate change mitigation and adaptation Namely the Swiss Partnership on Social Forestry and Climate Change in Asia, African Forests, People and Climate Change in Africa, and the initiative on Andean forests and their role in climate change mitigation and adaptation in the Andes.

3. Focal point for forest issues: supporting bilateral forest programmes and providing consulting services on the topic

Financing Instrument: Grants

Project scale: Current funding efforts within the sustainable forestry theme range from CHF400,000 to CHF10,000,000. The GPCCE has a budget of CHF61,000,000 for 2020.

Applicable geographical regions/country groups: SDC's development cooperation focuses on specific priority countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe.

Recipient categories: Governments, NGOs/NPOs

Eligibility Criteria: The SDC selects the countries with which it works according to set criteria. It also chooses the multilateral organisations and NGOs with which it works on the basis of clearly defined objectives. The list of SDC priority countries is available at the SDC website.

Application guidelines: Application guidelines for countries and multilateral organizations are not available. For NGOs, once every four years, and synchronised with Switzerland's strategy on international cooperation, the SDC publicly invites Swiss NGOs to apply for programme contributions in accordance with a specified procedure posted on its website.