Facts and Figures

• We are a foundation with over 25 years’ experience in development cooperation and as a non-profit-based organization we form part of the corporate responsibility portfolio of Novartis.
• We are a competence center for corporate responsibility and international health cooperation.
• The foundation has consultative status to the Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC) and contributes to UN objectives in particular.
• As a foundation we do not issue grants, that is to say we participate actively in the implementation of the health initiatives we support by lending both financial and technical assistance. Therefore we do not accept unsolicited project proposals.
• Our annual budget amounts to around 10 million Swiss francs.
• At present, we are engaged in nine larger projects and programs in sub-Saharan Africa and on the Indian subcontinent.
• The foundation has seven staff members; the President of the Board of Trustees and Executive Director is Klaus M. Leisinger.

Our vision

We are committed to “development with a human face” and want to help promote the emergence of a lasting social environment where human rights are guaranteed, basic needs are satisfied and there is maximum possible equality of opportunity and social justice for all.
Our objectives and activities

Improving the quality of life
We develop and support pioneering health projects in developing countries aimed at achieving specific goals in the fight against poverty and disease as well as at inspiring and improving development policy and practice.

Continuing to think corporate responsibility.
We promote the important debate on the basic principles of a fair division of responsibilities and duties in society for the sustainable welfare of all. We seek to help determine the content and limits of social responsibility, especially of pharmaceutical companies, as objectively as possible.

Enabling dialogue.
Through our positioning as a foundation with close corporate ties, we play a mediating and balancing role between the private sector, politics and civil society and facilitate dialogue.

Our method of working

Through the synergistic linking of

• think-tank activities (research, publications, consultation and information work),
• practical project and program work in the health sector and
• development policy dialogue and networking

We seek to combine theory and practice and try to join forces with others to develop and promote more effective and efficient approaches to poverty-related health issues in developing countries. Our scientific analyses provide us with a framework for project planning. Often our theoretical work leads to new concepts, which we then try out in practice. Dialogue and cooperation with other development organizations also benefit from the results of our research work. Many of the insights, ideas and perspectives of these partners enrich both our scientific and our practical work. Our experiences – good and bad alike – and our stubborn insistence on exemplary implementation of our development programs serve as a basis for reviewing our initial hypotheses. We also present them to our development policy network for discussion – which in the best case will in turn provide new impetus for our further work.