On Monday 26 May, several civil society organisations got together in Berne to hand over a petition called "0,7% - ensemble contre la pauvreté" (0.7% - together against poverty), including  201 679 signatures, to the Suisse authorities. The petition asks the federal council and the parliament to honour their engagements to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to increase the development aid budget to 0.7% of the GDP.

During the press conference, Bastienne Joerchel, political coordinator for development at Alliance Sud, said that she was positively surprised by the huge number of signatures collected. She highlighted that the petition does not only ask for a quantitative increase of the development aid budget, it also asks for more investment in the MDG sectors ; such as food security, the consequences of climate change and access to water as well as education. "With our petition, we would like Switzerland to take their engagements more seriously".

According to Peter Niggli, director of Alliance Sud, "the petition has opened up a public debate on the national development cooperation". He said that the ball was now in the parliament's court. The national council will treat questions relating to development cooperation in June.

Peter Niggli has, amongst other things, criticised the decision of the federal council to maintain the development aid budget at a level of 0.4% of the GDP. According to him, this goes against the commitments taken at the General Assembly of the UN.

Sources:

• Press release : "201'679 signatures pour plus d'aide au développement"
• Press release: "Augmentation de l'aide au développement: La balle est dans le camp du Parlement"
• Press release: "Large soutien pour plus d'aide au développement"