Projects
In the 1960s, Swisscontact set up vocational training colleges in Africa, Asia and Latin America and provided further training for the instructors at these colleges. This was followed in the 1980s by the launch of schemes aimed at promoting small and medium enterprises (SMEs), after graduates from the vocational training colleges had said that there was an urgent need for expert advice when setting up businesses. It was also evident that SMEs were experiencing considerable difficulty in obtaining commercial and investment credits. As a result, the organization introduced programmes favouring the creation of micro-finance institutions. After training car mechanics, Swisscontact also went on to develop integral solutions for preventing air pollution.
Swisscontact is specialized in project implementation and accepts assignments from public and private partners and carries out projects that have been put out to public tender. The organization also runs a programme of its own activities that are financed from donations and contributions from the state. All of these activities can be divided into four areas of operation:
- Vocational training
- Promotion of small and medium enterprises
- Financial services
- Environmental protection
Read more about this topic: Swisscontact
Famous quotes containing the word projects:
“But look what we have built ... low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace.... Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums.... Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“One of the things that is most striking about the young generation is that they never talk about their own futures, there are no futures for this generation, not any of them and so naturally they never think of them. It is very striking, they do not live in the present they just live, as well as they can, and they do not plan. It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for a future, none at all.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)