Going the extra mile – sustainably

To break up the broader challenges of increasing our impact and reducing our exposure to risk, we have set ourselves around 40 targets to be met by 2028. They cover various aspects of our work. Some targets are internally focussed, like minimising the gender pay gap, while others, like the promotion of biodiversity, are of global relevance and support our mission. 

In the interest of transparency, we publish our results each year. We do this with reference to the GRI standards. You can read about the progress we have made so far in our first-ever Sustainability Report 2024.  

A sustainable future depends on reaching net zero. In 2024, Swisscontact adopted ambitious emissions reduction targets in line with the 1.5°C pathway. The first step was to calculate a baseline carbon footprint using data from 2023. We did this for the whole organisation, working with a team of specialists in over 70 offices in 40 countries.  Together, we found that our main sources of emissions are vehicles, office electricity and flights.  

The next step was to look at concrete measures to reduce our use of fossil fuels. Over the next five years, we will decarbonise our activities as far as possible while maintaining our current high levels of impact and quality. Our plans include sourcing more electricity from renewables, improving the energy efficiency of our offices, replacing inefficient vehicles, and cutting the number of flights taken.   

Our projects are already designed in a gender-sensitive way, taking account of the fact that women and men experience unequal access to resources and decision-making. Now, we want to go further and increase the proportion of our projects that tackle the harmful gender norms underpinning this inequality. These high-potential interventions are termed “gender-positive” or “gender-transformative”. They include activities like leadership training for women, the promotion of non-traditional jobs and the facilitation of discussions about masculinity.  

To give one example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), we worked with masculinity groups. The aim was to encourage men to adopt positive attitudes towards women working outside of the home. Over nine months, while women attended skills training, their husbands reflected on what it means to have a wife participating in the labour market. They explored and overcame psychological barriers to the idea. As a result, these men became role models for progressive attitudes within their communities.  

When we tackle governance, we are not only thinking about our own organisation. We recognise that we are in a good position to support partners with their governance challenges. Indeed, that remit comprises a formal part of some partnership agreements or project aims.  

The Promoting Private Sector Engagement (PPSE) project, for example, partners with the Kosovo Association of Municipalities (KAM). The aim is to build up the capacities of subnational governments so Kosovo can benefit from the burgeoning tourism industry. As a result of Swisscontact's support, KAM now provides municipalities with a wealth of information on developing and operating tourism products. It also plays a pivotal role in terms of convening public actors to address tourism-related issues. For individual municipalities, the introduction of an accommodation tax will give them some financial independence from the central government and the means to finance the implementation of newly developed tourism strategies.