Switzerland promotes broad-based growth in Burkina Faso and Mozambique

BERN, Switzerland, May 8, 2013 – On 8 May 2013 the Federal Council decided to grant Burkina Faso and Mozambique general budgetary assistance of CHF 32 million each for the years 2013 to 2016. This will support both countries in implementation of their poverty reduction strategies, which focus on broad-based and sustainable growth.

Burkina Faso and Mozambique have in recent years displayed on-going macroeconomic stability, robust economic growth and a substantial increase in own revenues. Progress has also been made in social issues such as education, healthcare and water supply. Poverty reduction has seen only limited success, however, and both countries still need to catch up considerably, particularly in terms of basic infrastructure and economic diversification.

Through performance-based disbursements for the national budget and targeted policy dialogue, budgetary assistance helps to narrow the remaining development gaps and consolidate previous successes. This is done primarily with measures aimed at supporting broad-based growth and improving public services. Both of these budgetary assistance measures from Switzerland are being made in association with other donors.

Switzerland has cooperated with Burkina Faso and Mozambique for many years. It enjoys high visibility and is well regarded within policy dialogue for its expertise in core areas of the reform agenda and the predictability and far-sightedness of its interventions.

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. Budgetary assistance forms part of the package of measures to implement the framework credit on financing economic and trade policy measures.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.