Development & Aid, Europe, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, Population

CUBA-SWITZERLAND: Changing Lives

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Dec 14 2005 (IPS) - Gilberto González, a member of a cooperative in the eastern Cuban province of Holguín, came to the conclusion that metal silos are “the best thing in the world” after discovering that he can store his kidney bean crop in them without the loss of a single bean.

Closer to the centre of this Caribbean island, other people are also grateful for the progress they have achieved in their work and their quality of life with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the backbone of Switzerland’s development aid to less developed nations.

One of them, Felicia Lezcano, considers herself fortunate because the roof of her house no longer blows off every hurricane season. And there are dozens of other small farmers who have improved and diversified their crops with technological assistance from SDC.

In San Antonio de los Baños, 35 kilometres from Havana, the International School of Film and Television (EICTV) is happy to have entered the 21st century in terms of technology thanks to upgrades in its equipment.

“In our cooperation work, our aim is to support long-term processes, above and beyond day-to-day politics or diplomacy,” Olivier Berthoud, who arrived in September 2000 to explore the possibilities of Swiss development aid to Cuba, told IPS.

A historian with experience working in Latin America since 1980, Berthoud has confirmed in his daily life that “the Cuban people have an exceptional educational level in the regional context, and this is undoubtedly where its main development potential lies.”

SDC decided to start a medium-term cooperation programme focused on working alongside Cuban society “in a peaceful, participative and equitable development process.”

“From less than half a million dollars in the late 1990s, Swiss cooperation with Cuba has now reached more than four million dollars a year,” said Berthoud. After five years’ work in Cuba, he is returning home this month.

Since Dec. 1, the SDC office in Havana has been headed by Herbert Schmid, an economist who has worked for the institution for 20 years. Previously he worked for five years in Macedonia as the director of the SDC country team there.

The Swiss agency operates in 17 developing countries, and 10 countries in Eastern Europe. Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Nicaragua are other Latin American countries that benefit from Swiss development aid, which amounts to 0.4 percent of Switzerland’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Industrialised countries confirmed their commitment to spend at least 0.7 percent of GDP on aid to the developing South, at the 2000 United Nations General Assembly, when the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were agreed.

The MDGs, which include cutting extreme poverty and hunger to half of the 1990 levels, are to be fulfilled by 2015.

In Cuba, the SDC has worked with state institutions and non-governmental organisations, assisting them to develop viable, sustainable and profitable initiatives in three areas: food security, energy saving and improved housing.

Among the projects which have had the greatest impact in the rural areas is the introduction of simple grain storage technology on a small scale. This has also been developed successfully in Central America over the last 25 years.

“For small farmers, the benefits are obvious: the crops saved in silos over one or two harvests bring in enough to pay for a piece of equipment that will last for at least 30 years. The SDC has invested 450,000 dollars in adapting this technology in our first five years in the country,” said Berthoud.

Another programme of great importance for Cuba, which is experiencing a severe energy crisis, is being developed with the Ministry of Basic Industry. It is aimed at saving energy and financial resources, and diminishing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2 – the main greenhouse gas causing global warming – into the atmosphere.

By replacing lighting tubes and transformers with more efficient ones, electricity consumption is being cut in half. Although the new light bulbs are slightly more expensive than the traditional ones, in the long term the savings are substantial.

The SDC invested 1.2 million dollars in a study to assess the project’s technical feasibility and financial impact. With 40,000 lighting fixtures installed, it is estimated that Cuba will save more than 23.2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and will avoid releasing 17,662 tons of CO2 in five years.

“If the country’s three million lighting fixtures were all replaced, the savings in energy costs would amount to 40 million dollars a year,” Berthoud remarked.

The Swiss agency has also provided emergency aid after hurricanes have swept through Cuba. In addition, it supports the non-governmental Centre for Exchange and Reference on Community Initiatives, the Poor Film Festival in Gibara, and Infomed, the country’s health portal on the internet.

Furthermore, Swiss development aid is supporting a pilot project to collect urban solid waste in Havana, another to introduce the use of bamboo, and the production of “ecomaterials” that are more resistant than traditional ones when disasters strike.

“More than 2,500 families have been able to refurbish or rebuild their homes in the last five years, thanks largely to support from the SDC,” Fernando Martirena, at the Central University of Las Villas, 300 kilometres from Havana, told IPS.

In Berthoud’s view, none of the projects supported by the SDC in Cuba represents a magic solution. The social achievements of this country, he said, “will have to be sustained in the long term on the basis of developing the local economy.”

The history of Switzerland, he maintained, proves that “small countries without natural resources and dependent on other nations can achieve their own sustainable growth by diversifying their activities and their dependency on the international economy, based on activities solidly integrated into local life.”

“Cuba has great potential for diversifying,” Berthoud assured IPS as he prepared to leave the island that he has called home for five years.