Interministerial committee for development cooperation

MAN­DATE

The Law of 6 Jan­u­ary 1996 on devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion and human­i­tar­i­an action defines the respon­si­bil­i­ties of the Inter­min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion (IDC). The lat­ter thus has the remit of giv­ing its opin­ion on the broad out­lines of devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion pol­i­cy and the coher­ence of devel­op­ment poli­cies. The law also requests the gov­ern­ment to sub­mit an annu­al report to the Cham­ber of Deputies on the work of the Com­mit­tee, includ­ing the issue of the coher­ence of devel­op­ment policies.

The Grand Ducal Reg­u­la­tion of 7 August 2012 lays down the make-up and mode of oper­a­tion of the Inter­min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee for Devel­op­ment Cooperation.

COM­PO­SI­TION

The Grand-Ducal Reg­u­la­tion of 7 August 2012 stip­u­lates that each mem­ber of the gov­ern­ment shall appoint one del­e­gate to sit on the Committee.

The list of mem­bers shall be updat­ed reg­u­lar­ly and pub­lished on the Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion web­site in order to ensure that pro­ce­dures are trans­par­ent. The appoint­ment of full and alter­nate mem­bers is a response to the request by some min­is­te­r­i­al depart­ments to be asso­ci­at­ed with the Committee’s work. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the devel­op­ment NGOs’ Cer­cle de coopéra­tion par­tic­i­pate in all meet­ings address­ing the coher­ence of devel­op­ment policies.

ACTIV­I­TIES

The Com­mit­tee, chaired by the Direc­tor of Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs, met five times dur­ing the past year, on 1 Feb­ru­ary, 29 March, 7 June, 4 Octo­ber and 6 Decem­ber. In 2019, two inter­min­is­te­r­i­al work­ing groups were also estab­lished under the Committee’s aus­pices, one on oper­a­tional­is­ing a whole-of-gov­ern­ment approach between Cabo Verde and Lux­em­bourg and a sec­ond on the top­ic of ​‘Digital4Development’ (D4D). The reports of the Committee’s meet­ings are pub­lic and are avail­able on the MFA’s website.

At the meet­ings in 2019, in accor­dance with the Committee’s man­date, the fol­low­ing issues were addressed:

BROADORI­EN­TA­TIONS

The Com­mit­tee was pre­sent­ed with and dis­cussed the broad out­lines of the 2018 – 2023 gov­ern­ment pro­gramme on devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion and human­i­tar­i­an action. In par­tic­u­lar, the coali­tion agree­ment reit­er­at­ed Luxembourg’s com­mit­ment to pro­mot­ing mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the Euro­pean Union lev­el, remain­ing firm­ly with­in the frame­work of the Unit­ed Nations Agen­da 2030 and the achieve­ment of the 17 Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals (SDGs), includ­ing the con­cept of ​‘leav­ing no one behind’. The government’s pro­gramme reaf­firms the estab­lish­ment of devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion as a full pil­lar of Luxembourg’s for­eign pol­i­cy with­in the frame­work of the ​‘3D’ approach: diplo­ma­cy – devel­op­ment – defence. 

At the bilat­er­al lev­el, Lux­em­bourg con­firmed its geo­graph­i­cal con­cen­tra­tion approach through tar­get­ing a lim­it­ed num­ber of pri­or­i­ty part­ner coun­tries, par­tic­u­lar­ly the least devel­oped coun­tries (LDCs) locat­ed in West Africa and the Sahel region, while main­tain­ing a pres­ence in oth­er regions. Final­ly, the 2018 – 2023 agree­ment main­tains the objec­tive of allo­cat­ing 1% of Luxembourg’s gross nation­al income to offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance (ODA) by focus­ing on grants and con­tin­u­ing to apply the prin­ci­ple of addi­tion­al­i­ty of funds mobilised for inter­na­tion­al cli­mate finance and for tak­ing refugees in Lux­em­bourg. While main­tain­ing the untied nature of its aid, the coali­tion agree­ment empha­sis­es the pro­mo­tion of respon­si­ble pri­vate-sec­tor engage­ment through inno­v­a­tive, mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships to con­tribute to growth and sus­tain­able development.

The Com­mit­tee was also informed of the fol­low­ing points :

• The key ele­ments high­light­ed by Min­is­ter Lenert in the state­ment she gave on 14 May in the Cham­ber of Deputies on devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion pol­i­cy and human­i­tar­i­an action. In her state­ment, the Min­is­ter recalled Lux­em­bourg ​‘s com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance at the lev­el of 1% of its gross nation­al income. She placed par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on renew­able ener­gies and tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion, espe­cial­ly dig­i­tal inno­va­tion, as essen­tial ele­ments in mak­ing devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion more effec­tive. She recalled the con­tin­ued need for the eval­u­a­tion of coop­er­a­tion inter­ven­tions and announced that Lux­em­bourg had joined the Inter­na­tion­al Aid Trans­paren­cy Ini­tia­tive (IATI). The Min­is­ter also announced the imple­men­ta­tion, on a pilot basis, of a whole-of-gov­ern­ment approach with Cabo Verde that would go beyond devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion to include areas such as finance, cli­mate and defence. 
• The inter­na­tion­al ​‘Stand, Speak, Rise Up!’ con­fer­ence to end sex­u­al vio­lence in con­flict zones, held in Lux­em­bourg from 26 to 27 March. An ini­tia­tive of her Roy­al High­ness the Grand Duchess, the event brought togeth­er 1,200 peo­ple and enabled some 50 sur­vivors from 18 coun­tries to talk to experts and the pub­lic about ways to bet­ter pro­tect them and suc­cess­ful­ly com­bat sex­u­al vio­lence in frag­ile envi­ron­ments. Three Nobel Peace Prize win­ners, Dr Muk­wege, Mrs Murad and Pro­fes­sor Yunus, took part in the con­fer­ence. The event was sup­port­ed by the Lux­em­bourg gov­ern­ment and the Women’s Forum for the Econ­o­my & Society.
• The launch of the fourth call for projects under the Busi­ness Part­ner­ship Facil­i­ty (BPF) held on 4 April. The BPF is a financ­ing facil­i­ty with an annu­al work­ing cap­i­tal of EUR1 mil­lion, which aims to encour­age pri­vate sec­tor actors in Lux­em­bourg and the Euro­pean Union to part­ner with pub­lic and pri­vate part­ners in the coun­tries of the South to ini­ti­ate sus­tain­able com­mer­cial projects, with a pref­er­ence giv­en to Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion part­ner countries. 
• Paulette Lenert’s work­ing vis­it to Bangladesh from 10 to 13 June 2019. The vis­it focused on three themes: liv­ing con­di­tions in the pre­car­i­ous neigh­bour­hoods of the tex­tile indus­try, vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions in the north of the coun­try and the Rohingya refugee camps near Cox’s Bazar.
• Paulette Lenert’s work­ing vis­its to Cabo Verde and Laos from 1 to 4 July and from 6 to 14 Sep­tem­ber, respec­tive­ly. The vis­it to Cabo Verde, which was Min­is­ter Lenert’s first vis­it to a pri­or­i­ty part­ner coun­try, con­firmed Luxembourg’s com­mit­ment to a new mul­ti­an­nu­al part­ner­ship pro­gramme with the arch­i­pel­ago, start­ing in 2021, that will include the imple­men­ta­tion of a whole-of-gov­ern­ment approach on a tri­al basis. The vis­it to Laos, dur­ing which the Min­is­ter was accom­pa­nied by mem­bers of the Lux­em­bourg Cham­ber of Deputies and a nation­al press del­e­ga­tion. This was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to take stock, at the 12^th Part­ner­ship Com­mit­tee meet­ing, of part­ner­ship rela­tions between the two coun­tries and to lay the foun­da­tions for a future part­ner­ship pro­gramme by 2021.
• The ​‘Let’s Net’ train­ing, which was held on 8 July in Lip­per­scheid in the pres­ence of Min­is­ter Lenert. The train­ing course, organ­ised by emer​gency​.lu as a mem­ber of the UN’s Emer­gency Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion Clus­ter (ETC), took place over 10 days and brought togeth­er 16 par­tic­i­pants from human­i­tar­i­an agen­cies and the Grand Ducal Fire and Res­cue Corps (CGDIS).
• The deploy­ment of emer​gency​.lu in Mozam­bique on 23 March and the Bahamas on 10 Sep­tem­ber in the con­text of Cyclone Idai and Hur­ri­cane Dori­an respectively. 

• The par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Min­is­ter of Finance, Mr Grameg­na, and Min­is­ter Lenert, in the cel­e­bra­tion of the 20^th anniver­sary of the Finan­cial Tech­nol­o­gy Trans­fer Agency (ATTF) on 2 Octo­ber. Cre­at­ed at the ini­tia­tive of the Lux­em­bourg gov­ern­ment in 1999, ATTF’s pri­ma­ry mis­sion is to pro­mote the inclu­sion and devel­op­ment of emerg­ing and devel­op­ing coun­tries through the shar­ing of exper­tise and net­work­ing with Luxembourg’s finan­cial centre.

COHER­ENCEOFDEVEL­OP­MENTPOLICIES

The Com­mit­tee was informed of the launch in Lux­em­bourg on 26 Feb­ru­ary of the Social Per­for­mance Task Force Europe (SPTF), in the pres­ence of the Min­is­ter of Finance, Mr Grameg­na, and Min­is­ter Lenert. Already a reg­u­lar part­ner of the main micro­fi­nance sec­tor play­ers based in Lux­em­bourg, since Jan­u­ary 2019SPTF has had a pres­ence in the Grand Duchy through the cre­ation of the non-prof­it asso­ci­a­tion SPTF Europe, which receives finan­cial sup­port from the MFA/​Cooperation Direc­torate and the Min­istry of Finance. The mis­sion of SPTF, estab­lished in 2005, is to con­tribute to the estab­lish­ment of a respon­si­ble finan­cial ser­vices sec­tor which is trans­par­ent about its results. Its social per­for­mance man­age­ment tools are used by organ­i­sa­tions and com­pa­nies to define, mea­sure and mon­i­tor their social goals and to make their cus­tomers their prin­ci­pal focus.

On 29 March, del­e­gates attend­ed the pre­sen­ta­tion by the NGOs Fair­trade and Car­i­tas Lux­em­bourg on their joint aware­ness-rais­ing cam­paign ​‘Rethink your clothes’ (www​.rethinky​our​clothes​.lu), which was aimed at rais­ing pub­lic aware­ness of social and envi­ron­men­tal issues in the tex­tile sec­tor. The cam­paign, which was sup­port­ed by Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion, was offi­cial­ly launched on 27 March 2018. A major event in the cam­paign was the Fair Fash­ion Days, held from 5 to 7 April in Lux­em­bourg, to acquaint the gen­er­al pub­lic with accred­it­ed fash­ion exhibitors and upcy­cling creators. 

On 7 June, the Com­mit­tee attend­ed a pre­sen­ta­tion ses­sion on mixed finance by Con­ver­gence, the glob­al net­work, facil­i­tat­ed by the Min­istry of Finance. The aim of the pre­sen­ta­tion was to raise aware­ness of cur­rent prac­tices and trends in mixed finance and to explore poten­tial oppor­tu­ni­ties in this area for Lux­em­bourg. It should be not­ed that Con­ver­gence is a glob­al net­work work­ing on the issue of mixed finance. Its goal is to gen­er­ate data and facil­i­tate the flow of finan­cial resources to increase pri­vate-sec­tor impact invest­ments in order to achieve the SDGs. 

The Com­mit­tee was informed of and dis­cussed the pro­posed intro­duc­tion of a whole-of-gov­ern­ment approach in the Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s pri­or­i­ty part­ner coun­tries. Approved by the Gov­ern­ment Coun­cil at its meet­ing of 20 Sep­tem­ber, this approach aims to strength­en coher­ence and syn­er­gies between devel­op­ment actions and oth­er pub­lic pol­i­cy areas, such as com­bat­ing cli­mate change and eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al, polit­i­cal and secu­ri­ty rela­tions. As Cabo Verde is the part­ner coun­try with which Lux­em­bourg has the most diver­si­fied and devel­oped rela­tions, it has been cho­sen to ini­ti­ate this new approach, on a tri­al basis.

In addi­tion to five reg­u­lar meet­ings of the Com­mit­tee in 2019, two inter­min­is­te­r­i­al work­ing groups were estab­lished under the aus­pices of the Com­mit­tee. Thus, a first work­ing group was man­dat­ed by the Gov­ern­ment Coun­cil to ini­ti­ate and mon­i­tor the devel­op­ment of a whole-of-gov­ern­ment approach to Cabo Verde. The work of this group, launched on 5 Decem­ber, is coor­di­nat­ed by the MFA and involves the main min­istries and oth­er Lux­em­bourg actors with respon­si­bil­i­ties or a role in rela­tion to the devel­op­ment of Cabo Verde. 

A sec­ond inter­min­is­te­r­i­al work­ing group, ded­i­cat­ed to the top­ic of Digital4Development (D4D), has been estab­lished to serve as a frame­work for the exchange and use of Lux­em­bourg exper­tise and know-how gen­er­at­ed around dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies and to trans­late its key prin­ci­ples into a coher­ent dig­i­tal devel­op­ment approach which could, on request, be deployed in Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion part­ner countries. 

On 6 Decem­ber, the Com­mit­tee took part in a pre­sen­ta­tion ses­sion enti­tled ​‘The shrink­ing space of civ­il soci­ety – link with the coher­ence of devel­op­ment poli­cies and human rights’, facil­i­tat­ed by the devel­op­ment NGOs’ Cer­cle de coopéra­tion. Co-pre­sent­ed by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Cer­cle and its NGO mem­bers Fair­trade Lëtze­buerg, Frère des Hommes and SOS Faim, the dis­cus­sions focused in par­tic­u­lar on the issue of the restric­tion of the civic space, the rela­tion­ship between the pri­vate sec­tor and human rights, the sit­u­a­tion of human rights advo­cates and the approach­es avail­able to Lux­em­bourg to address these challenges.

AGEN­DA

The Com­mit­tee was informed of the launch of the Agri-Busi­ness Cap­i­tal Fund (ABC Fund) on 15 Feb­ru­ary in Rome, in the pres­ence of Min­is­ter Lenert. The aim of the fund, which was ini­ti­at­ed by Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Inter­na­tion­al Fund for Agri­cul­tur­al Devel­op­ment (IFAD), is to stim­u­late eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment in rur­al areas through invest­ment in micro, small and medi­um-sized rur­al and agri­cul­tur­al enter­pris­es. This new sus­tain­able finance instru­ment is man­aged by a fund man­ag­er based in Lux­em­bourg, Bam­boo Cap­i­tal Part­ners. In the fund’s ini­tial tranche, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion com­mit­ted EUR40 mil­lion, AGRA com­mit­ted EUR4.5 mil­lion and Lux­em­bourg EUR5 mil­lion. The con­cept behind this inno­v­a­tive finan­cial instru­ment is to serve as lever­age to mobilise pri­vate invest­ment to achieve the SDGs.

The del­e­gate mem­bers were informed of the con­fer­ence enti­tled ​‘The Glob­al Fund and Lux­em­bourg: Advanc­ing the fight against HIV and beyond for women and girls’, held in Lux­em­bourg on 14 March, in the pres­ence of Min­is­ter Lenert and the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Glob­al Fund to Fight HIV, Tuber­cu­lo­sis and Malar­ia, Mr Sands. In the replen­ish­ment cam­paign for the 2020 – 2022 peri­od, Lux­em­bourg was the first part­ner to renew its finan­cial sup­port to the Glob­al Fund, pledg­ing EUR9 mil­lion in Feb­ru­ary 2019. With a total con­tri­bu­tion of EUR42 mil­lion since 2002, Lux­em­bourg is one of the largest donors to the Glob­al Fund. per capita. 

STAFFACTIVEWITH­INDEVEL­OP­MENTCOOPERATION

In accor­dance with Arti­cles 24 and 50 of the amend­ed Law of 6 Jan­u­ary 1996, the Com­mit­tee gave its writ­ten or tac­it approval to:

• 10 appli­ca­tions for the offi­cial sta­tus of coop­er­a­tion agent
• 20 appli­ca­tions for the exten­sion of aid work­er status
• 54 appli­ca­tions for devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion leave