Urban climate neutrality: Swiss development projects and urban climate finance in Rajkot

This article explores the evolving role of state development agencies in anchoring climate finance. It suggests that the financialization under the “Wall Street Consensus” results in a repositioning of state development agencies as facilitators of global financial flows. Focusing on Swiss-led development projects in Rajkot, a secondary city in India, the study examines how these initiatives locally “anchor” climate finance from different sources and provide technical assistance to translate it into climate-resilient infrastructure projects. The analysis reveals how Swiss development agencies shape urban climate responses in India while advancing Switzerland's position as a neutral intermediary and securing forward-looking interests in emerging climate markets. Applying conceptual perspectives on contemporary state capitalism, climate urbanism, and the financialization of development to empirical findings from Swiss development projects in Rajkot, this article pursues three objectives: (a) to investigate the facilitating role assumed by Swiss development agencies for climate-resilient interventions in Rajkot, (b) to identify how state-capitalist interests shape these projects, and (c) to enhance the understanding of how national development institutions adapt to the uneven landscape of global climate finance. It argues that Swiss development projects function as state–capital hybrids that advance national interests through ostensibly neutral technical assistance, illustrating how the strategic channelling of climate finance can serve anticipatory marketization in the Global South.