Message from the Chairman

The Swiss Re Foundation aims to make the world more resilient. To appreciate its unique role in enhancing the resilience of vulnerable communities, one can look back at our progress and achievements in the three-year strategy cycle that concluded in 2024.

During that period, the world faced many risks that challenged resilience in healthcare access and climate solutions. For example, 2024 saw record heat and ongoing inflation affect households, businesses and government budgets, slowing progress toward the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Poor communities in low- and middle-income countries, the focus of most Swiss Re Foundation projects, bore the brunt of the consequences.

Human behaviour not only influences the climate and health risk landscape but also offers potential solutions. The milestones achieved by the Foundation in 2024 attest to its success in catalysing sustainable, human-centric approaches to building resilience. By providing financial support and access to expertise, the Foundation assists and de-risks early-stage solutions toward financial sustainability. The projects initiated in 2022-2024 already improved the resilience of over 1 million people by the end of 2024, with another 1 million expected to benefit as implementation continues.

Over the same period, volunteering for Foundation partners reached its highest-ever level, with 28% of Swiss Re employees worldwide contributing. Many are business and subject matter experts who have provided social enterprises with coaching and technical assistance through Shine, a skills-based volunteering programme now offered in eight countries and regions, with the recent addition of Southeast Asia.

To unlock support from other funders and investors, the Foundation strives to amplify the reach of its partners’ efforts by collecting and analysing evidence on what works. It has engaged the independent assessment company 60decibels to evaluate its partners’ impact on key metrics such as healthcare access and quality of life. Impact reports on five health-focused initiatives were published in 2024, while assessments of 10 more – including projects to build climate resilience – are in the works. Both the Foundation and its partners are applying the resulting insights.

Andreas Berger, CEO of Swiss Re, joined the Foundation’s Board of Trustees and reaffirmed its anchoring within the Swiss Re Group. Also, the Foundation is embedded in external networks of like-minded institutions more strongly than ever, facilitating better collaboration and risk-sharing. The Entrepreneurs for Resilience programme, now supported by the Digital Connected Care Coalition and the UBS Optimus Foundation, shows a promising way forward. In 2024 the Foundation also began supporting the implementation of CARDIO4Cities, a systemic, evidence-based initiative spearheaded by the Novartis Foundation to reduce the burden of hypertension and improve cardiovascular public health in low- and middle-income countries.

The Foundation continues to explore new ways to amplify impact. A project with Start Network in the Philippines contributed to not only local capacity building but also an anticipatory risk financing mechanism that helps vulnerable communities prepare for and recover from tropical cyclones by releasing emergency funds before a disaster strikes – a potential model for governments. In another example of how innovative financing can help address societal challenges, a collaboration with the Impact-Linked Finance Fund seeks to identify potential recipients of outcome-linked loans among enterprises that have previously received support from the Foundation and its partners.

As the 2025-2027 strategy cycle gets underway, the Foundation is sharpening its portfolio and strengthening its efforts to improve system efficiency. Climate resilience in vulnerable communities will increasingly be funded through accelerators of start-up business models that protect coastal natural assets. On the health side, lessons from third-party evaluations are spurring more collaboration with partners that take a “brick-and-click” approach, combining physical points of care with supportive digital tools to improve low-income people’s access to quality care.

Times of rapid change present philanthropies with an opportunity to prove they are reliable partners in addressing big societal challenges. With its consistent focus on innovators who provide solutions that make the world sustainably more resilient, the Swiss Re Foundation is well positioned to meet its goal of improving the lives of 2 million vulnerable people in low-income communities over the next three years.