Since Friday, many things in Switzerland have been the same as before the pandemic. The Corona measures are history. The fact that a return to normality is possible at all is mainly thanks to vaccinations.
The supply of vaccines remains guaranteed despite the end of the “special situation”. 34 million vaccine doses are available this year alone – more than enough. That’s why the federal government decided to donate up to 15 million from Moderna and Pfizer to other countries.
Vaccine donations basically good
In principle, this is a good development, says Kristina Lanz, who is responsible for development policy at Alliance Sud, an association of Swiss development organizations such as Swissaid, Caritas and Terre des hommes. In the poorest regions of the world, just under 15 percent of people have been vaccinated at least once. “Since the rich countries are now making more vaccine doses available and no longer monopolize the market, at least the short to medium-term supply of these countries is guaranteed for the first time.”
But there is a catch from Alliance Sud’s point of view. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently decided that surplus vaccine doses given to poorer nations can officially be counted towards donor countries’ public development spending. This is how Switzerland wants to handle it.
Development aid could be cut
Alliance Sud therefore fears that Switzerland could cook up its development spending in this way. Our country currently spends 0.48 percent of gross national income on development cooperation. Parliament and the Federal Council have confirmed several times that the target is 0.5 percent.
The federal government emphasizes that the donated vaccines are a supplement to the regular development budget. Alliance Sud is still concerned: “Parliament can use these numbers as an opportunity to cut spending on development cooperation.”
There’s another reason why Alliance Sud opposes counting vaccine donations as development aid. Kristina Lanz: “From a moral point of view, it is problematic that these vaccine doses, which were never bought in the interests of poorer countries but – on the contrary – contributed to the global shortage of vaccines, are now being sold as development aid.”