![\"swiss](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1233048624.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
In future, Switzerland is planning to focus more on emergency aid; pictured are pandemic materials sent to Nepal in 2021. <\/p>\n
Prabin Ranabhat \/ Getty Images <\/p>\n
The Swiss government plans to revamp its foreign aid approach, shifting money away from longer-term development cooperation and towards short-term humanitarian funding. This could be bad news for its democracy promotion efforts. An analyis.\n<\/p>\n
This content was published on <\/p>\n
July 13, 2026 – 09:00\n<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/domhnall-o-sullivan-profileImage-43148785.png\")
<\/p>\n
\n As part of the democracy team, I report on the dynamic relationship between citizens and their institutions in Switzerland and abroad.
\nBorn in Ireland, I have a BA in European Studies and MA in International Relations. I’ve been at SWI swissinfo.ch since 2017. <\/p>\n
In May 2025, Switzerland made a foreign policy declaration that ran against the global grain. With the Trump Administration slashing US commitments to democracy promotion globally, and Europe reluctant to fill the gap, Bern put its hand up. It would streamline democracy support across its aid and diplomacy, and work to prevent further declines in freedom where possible, the foreign ministry said in its first-ever \u201cdemocracy guidelinesExternal link<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n A year on, the pledge still sounds lofty. But the global situation is also still very much in flux. Trump\u2019s sidelining of USAID \u2013 the world\u2019s biggest democracy funder pre-2025 \u2013 left a gaping hole of $3 billion (CHF2.42 billion) which is still not filled. Other US bodies like the Congress-backed National Endowment for Democracy have survived, but are under pressure. And private philanthropy often fails to focus enough on freedoms and civil liberties, an article in the American quarterly Journal of Democracy recently arguedExternal link<\/a>.<\/p>\n That leaves a shrinking pool of democracy backers including some European states, Australia, Canada, or Japan. But \u201cwhile these actors have maintained many of their commitments to democracy aid and democratic values, they have not substantially expanded their pro-democracy engagement to meet the moment\u201d, the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote in JuneExternal link<\/a>. With many European governments more worried about their own defence (or their own democracies), France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden have even cut foreign aid. As for the EU, it looks set to boost development funding next year, but without a dedicated budget for democracy.<\/p>\n Switzerland has had a constitutional mandate to back democracy globally since 2000 \u2013 how does it do it?<\/p>\n \n More<\/p>\n More <\/p>\n A delicate export: how Swiss foreign policy promotes democracy <\/p>\n This content was published on <\/p>\n Jun 13, 2025 <\/p>\n Switzerland has a constitutional mandate to promote democracy around the world. What happens when that world starts looking more authoritarian? <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read more: A delicate export: how Swiss foreign policy promotes democracy Nice ideas, unclear funding<\/p>\n And Switzerland? For Carnegie, it is a rare example of a somewhat positive case, having made a \u201cnotably prioritised commitment to democracy support in 2025\u201d \u2013 largely thanks to the new guidelines. However, there is the usual financial caveat. Like other countries, Switzerland has been cutting foreign aid generally in recent years, citing budget pressures. The question, Carnegie wrote, is how this will affect democracy funding.<\/p>\n A more recent announcement about the future of Swiss aid could offer clues if not clarity. On June 24, the government outlined its plansExternal link<\/a>: by 2030, the focus will shift more towards short-term humanitarian aid and away from development cooperation \u2013 i.e. the type of long-term projects where democracy promotion often happens. The shift in priorities was spurred by budget constraints and global \u201crealities\u201d, Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis told media at the time \u2013 more crises, more wars, more emergency needs.<\/p>\n So far, Cassis\u2019 foreign ministry has not given details about what the revamp means for democracy specifically. Despite the big numbers involved \u2013 Swiss development cooperation will drop by almost 23%, or CHF300 million ($372 million) by 2030, while humanitarian aid will jump by 61%, or CHF330 million \u2013 it is still \u201ctoo early to determine\u201d how this will affect democracy promotion programmes, it told Swissinfo. The impact is \u201ccurrently being assessed\u201d.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not hard to imagine negative spillover. Swiss democracy support is often embedded in development cooperation projects: backing parliamentary independence in Macedonia, decentralised governance in Kosovo, or woman\u2019s literacy in Arab countries, for example. Some CHF250 million was allocated for such work in 2024 \u2013 around 10% of the total Swiss international cooperation budget. With funds shifting towards humanitarian aid, the pot shrinks.<\/p>\n Read more about how Switzerland is ending its development projects \u2013 including democracy promotion \u2013 in Bangladesh:<\/p>\n \n More<\/p>\n More <\/p>\n Foreign Affairs\n <\/p>\n Switzerland withdraws from democracy support in Bangladesh\u00a0 <\/p>\n This content was published on <\/p>\n Jun 13, 2025 <\/p>\n Promoting democracy around the world is one of Switzerland\u2019s goals, but at the same time the funds for such efforts are dwindling. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read more: Switzerland withdraws from democracy support in Bangladesh\u00a0 Latin America withdrawal<\/p>\n New geographic priorities also might not be kind to regions under authoritarian pressure. For example, Bern will finally end development cooperation in Latin America: \u201cSwitzerland can\u2019t be everywhere\u201d, Cassis said in June. Yet this comes as the continent has been facing anti-democratic trends for decades; it also jars with the repeated mentions of the importance of democracy in the Swiss government\u2019s Americas Strategy for 2026-2029.<\/p>\n A departmental overhaul in aid management could also have effects. Previously, projects were sometimes run by the foreign ministry, sometimes by the State Secretariat for Economic Cooperation (SECO), with some overlap. In future, the policy is \u201cone country, one department\u201d: the foreign ministry will take care of low-income regions like Africa, with SECO taking the EU, Western Balkans, and some of Asia. The justification is that certain regions are now more suited to SECO\u2019s trade-and-investment approach, rather than development cooperation. What will this mean for governance-based projects in places like Kosovo, which may not bring tangible economic benefits?<\/p>\n Read how USAID\u2019s withdrawal from North Macedonia has highlighted the importance of other democracy supporters:<\/p>\n \n More<\/p>\n More <\/p>\n International cooperation\n <\/p>\n What USAID\u2019s withdrawal means for North Macedonia\u00a0 <\/p>\n This content was published on <\/p>\n Jan 26, 2026 <\/p>\n North Macedonia has been hit by USAID\u2019s withdrawal. Fears are growing that \u2018less Western\u2019 countries will bridge the funding gap. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read more: What USAID\u2019s withdrawal means for North Macedonia\u00a0 Fighting fires and preventing them<\/p>\n That said, not all Swiss democracy promotion is tied to development aid. The 2025 guidelines list another approach: \u201cdiplomacy for democracy\u201d, or using bilateral and multilateral dialogue to push democracy as an attractive model. On this front, budget specifics are also hard to predict, but cuts could loom: the government plans to save CHF11 million annually by 2030 in the area of \u201cpeace and security\u201d. Here, the foreign ministry\u2019s peace and human rights division might well be affected \u2013 the division responsible for \u201cdiplomacy for democracy\u201d.<\/p>\n Meanwhile the overall shift in approach \u2013 which means 100 lost jobs, mainly outside Switzerland \u2013 has come in for criticism. The left-wing Social Democrats slammed a \u201crazing of development cooperation\u201d. Some 27 foundations, including those funded by heavyweights like tennis star Roger Federer or reinsurance company Swiss Re, urged the government to reconsider, fearing damage to Swiss values \u2013 not to mention stability and security globally. And Alliance Sud, an umbrella organisation for aid NGOs, said the new humanitarian focus was like beefing up the fire brigade to the detriment of fire prevention.<\/p>\n To some extent, a similar logic underpins Swiss democracy promotion. Here too, the goal is less about long-term promotion than shorter-term protection. \u201cIn the context of the global democratic recession, our goal has never been, and cannot be, to expanding the democratic world. Rather, we must secure it,\u201d the foreign ministry\u2019s Tim Enderlin said last yearExternal link<\/a> when introducing the guidelines.<\/p>\n Whether this reflects a lack of ambition or a pragmatic response to a hostile world depends partly on political perspective. Yet what is clear is that even the more modest goal of shoring up democracy needs funding. And with less available in future for development cooperation in general, it remains to be seen how much will be left for democracy.<\/p>\n Edited by Benjamin von Wyl\/ds<\/p>\n Articles in this story <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In future, Switzerland is planning to focus more on emergency aid; pictured are pandemic materials sent to Nepal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,301,1454,5461,2176,6683,1384,461,41,17,21740,21362],"class_list":["post-102532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-article","tag-beat-foreign-affairs","tag-beat-international-cooperation","tag-beat-swiss-democracy","tag-democracy","tag-foreign-aid","tag-international-relations","tag-production-type-original","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland","tag-user-need-explain-it-to-me","tag-user-need-give-me-perspective"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116911536091543819","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n More from this author <\/a><\/p>\n
\n English Department <\/a><\/p>\n![\"people](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2020-07-15T125934Z_720681986_RC2OTH9RJ1G6_RTRMADP_3_NORTH-MACEDONIA-ELECTION.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n <\/a><\/p>\n![\"Cultural](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/075_ahmed-notitle240730_npv05.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n <\/a><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SWI_MKD_Skopje_001.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n <\/a><\/p>\n