NORTH-SOUTH CENTRE - ETH - North-South Centre North-South ...

Dynamic funding environment
One of the most dominant experiences in the course of
2009 was the changing funding environment. In the past,
the programme of the North-South Centre was built primarily
on contracts with the Swiss Agency for Development
and Cooperation (SDC). In the course of 2009, SDC went
through a process of reorganisation, including an external
review of the SDC research portfolio. Both processes led to
a new positioning of research within SDC which will be
concluded in 2010. For this reason, SDC did not enter any
new contractual commitments. However, SDC extended our
ongoing contracts until mid-2011. Throughout the year,
we had several meetings with representatives of the sections
“Analysis and policy” and “Global programme on food
security”. We were also fully involved in the stakeholder
consultation of the external review of the SDC research
portfolio, including one of the case studies in Peru. On a
smaller scale, SDC outsourced the backstopping mandate
for bioenergy to the North-South Centre, to become effective
in 2010.
Regarding funding, we experienced promising new contacts
with private foundations. The contract signed with the
Sawiris Foundation for Social Development in 2008 allowed
us to award the first Sawiris fellowship in 2009 (see p. 84).
Samih Sawiris did not only take an active interest in the
selection process, but was also present as panelist at our
North-South Forum on how to put research into use. Beyond
this first signed partnership with a private foundation,
our constructive relationship with the ETH Foundation has
started to bear fruit. Through their intervention, we were
successful in brokering a contract between a research group
of our members and the UBS Optimus Foundation. They
agreed to fund an innovation project on health hazards
6
Profile
A word from the Managing Director
Members of the North-South Centre discussing
a first draft of the new strategy