PRESS RELEASE

Ghana to receive US$ 24 million in budget support from Switzerland over the period 2009 - 2011

On 6 April 2009 the Swiss Ambassador to Ghana, H.E. Mr. Nicolas Lang, and the Minister of State for Finance and Economic Planning of Ghana, Hon. Dr. Kwaben Duffour, signed a new bilateral agreement to support Ghana in reducing poverty and dealing with the consequences of the global economic crisis by providing general budget support. The measure includes a non-repayable grant of USD 24 million, spread over the next three years. Payments are performance-related and will be made in association with the Multi-donor budget support (MDBS) development partners group, which will be chaired by Switzerland from June 2009 to June 2010.

The signing of this agreement is part of the Swiss economic development assistance to Ghana. Ghana is already a very important focus of Switzerland’s development assistance and is considered one of its seven world-wide priority countries in terms of economic development cooperation, which is administered through the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). Other SECO priority countries in Africa are South Africa and Egypt.

Switzerland, together with ten other development partners, has been providing budget support to Ghana in the form of the so called “Multi-donor budget support” (MDBS) since 2003. MDBS currently amounts to approximately US$ 300 million per annum and reaches around 5% of the total Government budget. Switzerland will be co-chairing the MDBS development partners group together with the World Bank starting from June 2009.

This Swiss budget support of US$ 24 million will be contributed directly to the Government of Ghana’s budget and aims to help increase spending in areas which will reduce poverty such as health, education, developing the private sector and improving good governance.

In March 2009, the Governments of Switzerland and Ghana agreed on a new four-year country assistance strategy for Switzerland’s economic development assistance. In line with this strategy, which includes MDBS, Switzerland will support Ghana in the areas of enhancing private sector development, energy sector infrastructure, trade sector development as well as macroeconomic stability and public financial management reforms.

For Switzerland, the concentration on less countries world-wide in the field of economic development cooperation, alignment with partner country priorities, use of partner country systems, and harmonisation with other donors are of utmost importance. This is demonstrated with the renewal of Switzerland’s commitment to budget support in Ghana, which fully complies with the core points of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda Action following the 3rd High Level Forum held in September in Accra.