Swisscontact and the Springfield Centre join forces

The mission of both organisations is to reduce poverty and improve livelihoods through sustainable and inclusive economic development and that, whilst continuing to provide high-quality advisory and training services, the combination of SC and SFC provides opportunities to support larger programmes and to develop and deliver new services to corporate and philanthropic aid markets.

Both organisations are convinced that future development challenges need new partnerships that use synergies and build on complementarity strengths. They are dedicated to leverage their rich experience and common track record to provide new, innovative solutions to development challenges.

For more employment and income in developing countries

“We share the same values and are fully committed to continuing our mission to deliver more effective and better development to make a meaningful contribution to long-term economic growth in developing countries; creating jobs and increasing incomes. The Swisscontact Board and management team are convinced that, together, we can utilise significant synergies, increase innovation and strengthen the breadth and depth of, market relevant services” said Samuel Bon, CEO of Swisscontact.

Jon Burns, CEO Springfield Centre stated: “The global Agenda 2030 and related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are necessarily ambitious. Successful delivery will require new thinking, including the development of new delivery and financing models, new partnering models with the private sector, and the appropriate application of new technologies. In this context, the ability to deliver larger scale and lower cost high-quality services is becoming a fact of life in our existing and emerging markets.”

A long common history

For nearly two decades, SC and SFC have worked together as partners in various projects around the world. Most significantly, our two organisations pioneered new market development approaches, financed by the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) and UK Aid, called Market Systems Development (MSD) for the poor. These approaches have shaped systemic thinking in development around the globe and have since been adopted by many agencies.

Leveraging our experience

SC and SFC can together bring more value to our financing partners on one hand and leverage the synergies of our competencies in favour of our beneficiaries on the other hand. Together, we are a more relevant actor, combining research and advisory services with implementation capacity. By leveraging the wealth of experience and expertise of both SC as well as SFC, we will enhance our capabilities to provide advisory, training and implementation services in a wide range of development activities and approaches.

Both brands will be retained. As a subsidiary of Swisscontact, SFC will continue to operate as a stand-alone, UK-based company. The maintenance of the existing locations in Switzerland and the United Kingdom and thus the safeguarding of jobs is very important to both organisations.

Peter Bissegger, Heinrich M. Lanz, Jon Burns, Rachel Burns, Samuel Bon (from left)