Centre for Development and Environment (CDE)

Titleimage: Centre for Development and Environment (CDE)

CDE is Switzerland’s centre of excellence for sustainable development. One of the University of Bern’s strategic research centres, we are tasked with mainstreaming sustainability throughout the university’s research and teaching.

We conduct research and teaching on behalf of a more sustainable world. Our aim is to chart pathways to sustainable development and to initiate transformations in line with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In our strategy, we show how we are committed to implementing the 2030 Agenda through our theory of change. We combine sound research with inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to analysis and transformation. Our research agenda is created within long-standing partnerships spanning the global North and South.

 

Switzerland’s new international cooperation strategy is not ambitious enough

The Swiss Federal Council has presented its draft Dispatch on International Cooperation 2025–2028. Among other things, the government plans to shift CHF 1.5 billion from development cooperation to urgently needed support for Ukraine. For CDE, this is unacceptable, as the funds would be diverted away from the poorest developing regions, where they are just as urgently needed. The proposal could also be more ambitious and more coherent with existing strategies in other respects – especially when it comes to implementing the 2030 Agenda, combating rising inequality, and protecting the climate. In its response to the ongoing consultation, CDE shows how (in German).

The community of the “undisciplined” marches on

It was a busy seven years in Bern. This spring, the Global Land Programme, an international network of land system specialists, moved its coordination office from CDE to the University of Maryland in the US. We wanted to know from the key people behind the scenes: What were the highlights? What challenges went unsolved? And what opportunities are opened up thanks to the new GLP headquarters?

Global Land Programme

“Today, sustainability is also understood as a market”

Heinzpeter Znoj, professor of social anthropology at the University of Bern and president of the CDE Board, will transition to professor emeritus status. How does he view today’s sustainability debate and the role of transformative science? A conversation about lessons from the past, new horizons, and tasks in teaching and research to address the current crises.

Spotlight: Interview with Heinzpeter Znoj

Research

New transit routes are reshaping Georgia

Roads, rails, ports – projects aimed at launching or expanding transit routes from Asia to Europe are mounting. In the middle of it all are the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. What do the mega-infrastructure projects mean for the local populations? This question was studied in a CDE pilot project on Georgia's west-east axis.

How much do we need for a good life?

We can’t ignore the facts: In high-income countries, we must thoroughly change our consumption habits and our ways of working if we want to stop harming the climate and the environment. A team of CDE researchers is investigating how we can make progress on this – and they’ve recently come up with concrete ways of doing so.

Sufficiency

Making fish imports to Switzerland more sustainable

Switzerland imports 96% of its fish. Given their environmental and socio-economic effects, existing measures are insufficient to ensure sustainable fisheries production – especially in terms of social dimensions such as labour and human rights. Our new project aims to chart a path forward towards more sustainable fish imports.

New project

science4policy

Sustainable land management and investments in Laos

The government of Laos has committed to a socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable growth strategy. In practice, however, problems implementing this strategy abound. Export-oriented land investments, for example, still often have undesired environmental and social impacts. A new project aims to improve the sustainability of land management and governance in Laos by means of enhanced knowledge, capacities, and processes in both government and the private sector that promote quality investments and climate-resilient practices.

Bittersweet fruits of ‘miracle growth’

When it comes to fighting poverty, the prescription of most economists is growth. This means growth of agriculture in many low-income countries where production of food and commodity crops is the biggest employer. But there are risks – especially for local populations marginalized by rising commercial activity or incorporated into it on adverse terms. Based on evidence from the coffee heartlands of Rwanda and Laos, this policy brief highlights tools for measuring the impacts of agricultural growth on poverty in rural areas. And it emphasizes the oft-overlooked importance of labour dynamics in such settings.

CDE Policy brief

“We want to spark a post-growth debate based on concrete examples of commons initiatives”

Cities have become one of the main settings for addressing rising resource use and growing inequality. Commons initiatives can play an important role here – and also be a way of countering the rising costs of rent, believes Jean-David Gerber, Professor at the University of Bern’s Institute of Geography and CDE member. In a new research project with CDE, he investigates such forms of organization in both Switzerland and Ghana.

Spotlight: Interview with Jean-David Gerber