Foreword by the Minister for development cooperation and humanitarian affairs

Dear read­ers,
Dear friends of Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Cooperation,

It is dif­fi­cult to com­pre­hend how much the world has changed since I took over at the head of the Depart­ment for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs in Feb­ru­ary 2020. The COVID-19 cri­sis is hav­ing an impact on every­thing we do and on the way we live and act. There are still many unknowns about the exact nature of the virus, the scale of its direct impact on health and on the socio-eco­nom­ic con­se­quences for pop­u­la­tions across the world, par­tic­u­lar­ly the most dis­ad­van­taged. Two cer­tain­ties, how­ev­er, remain: our devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion and human­i­tar­i­an activ­i­ties are more impor­tant and more urgent­ly required than ever, and only col­lec­tive action, based on inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty, will enable us to effec­tive­ly respond to this glob­al pan­dem­ic. Lux­em­bourg has tak­en the steps required to work towards that objective.

In 2019, the new gov­ern­ment con­firmed the exist­ing main prin­ci­ples of Luxembourg’s pol­i­cy for devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion and human­i­tar­i­an affairs. Even in this time of cri­sis they remain valid. Our com­mit­ment is based on the 17 Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals and con­tin­ues to focus on basic social ser­vices, socio-eco­nom­ic inclu­sion of women and young peo­ple, sus­tain­able growth and inclu­sive gov­er­nance. In a dif­fi­cult inter­na­tion­al con­text fea­tur­ing grow­ing insta­bil­i­ty and inse­cu­ri­ty in many of our part­ner coun­tries, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has been able to main­tain its sus­tained action and its con­crete impact in the field, by rely­ing on inno­v­a­tive solu­tions and mul­ti-actor part­ner­ships, includ­ing, in par­tic­u­lar, the pri­vate sec­tor and civ­il society. 

While we have main­tained our over­all objec­tives, a mod­erni­sa­tion of our activ­i­ties was launched last year and I would like to take the oppor­tu­ni­ty here to thank my pre­de­ces­sor, Paulette Lenert, whose one-year term of office at the Direc­torate for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs has left its mark. Thus, Lux­em­bourg was able to join the ​‘Digital4Development Hub’, a Euro­pean ini­tia­tive with the aim of pro­mot­ing a con­sis­tent Euro­pean approach to oth­er coun­tries in the area of dig­i­tal coop­er­a­tion. The exper­tise of Lux­em­bourg oper­a­tors in dig­i­tal inno­va­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the area of research and the pri­vate sec­tor, will be able to con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of inno­v­a­tive dig­i­tal solu­tions, espe­cial­ly in Africa.

With the same mind­set, there has been a move to review the tra­di­tion­al devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion rela­tions with the pri­or­i­ty part­ner coun­tries, shift­ing to a coun­try approach that is more coher­ent and which takes into account the actions by oth­er bod­ies such as the Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate and Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment and the Min­istry of Finance. Thus, this year I have been able to sign the first ​‘Devel­op­ment-Cli­mate-Ener­gy’ Pro­gramme with Cabo Verde.

Gen­der inclu­sive­ness and an increased focus on women have also been guid­ing prin­ci­ples in the actions sup­port­ed in 2019. This has been seen from Bangladesh, where the role of women in their com­mu­ni­ties is being strength­ened, to Niger, where school atten­dance of girls is being pro­mot­ed, to Burk­i­na Faso, where access of women to micro­cre­d­it is being guar­an­teed, enabling them to have stalls at local mar­kets. Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has also been the first donor to announce a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the Panzi hos­pi­tal project in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go pro­mot­ed by Dr Muk­wege, win­ner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The hos­pi­tal aims to devel­op a holis­tic approach to look­ing after rape sur­vivors and vic­tims of war crimes.

Many of these actions have been car­ried out in col­lab­o­ra­tion with non-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions (NGOs) and I would like to empha­sise their impor­tance as part of Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion, where they have often ini­ti­at­ed action. In 2019 we cel­e­brat­ed the 40^th anniver­sary of the found­ing of the Cer­cle de Coopéra­tion, the 50^th anniver­sary of the ASTM and the 25^th anniver­sary of ADA, to men­tion just a few notable dates. An impres­sive 26 frame­work agree­ments and 74 projects were co-financed last year, and var­i­ous field vis­its high­light­ed the cru­cial role of NGOs, par­tic­u­lar­ly in regions weak­ened by con­flicts. It was also pos­si­ble to strength­en the respon­si­bil­i­ty tak­en and the duty of dili­gence of NGOs towards their part­ners and ben­e­fi­cia­ries through, first­ly, the eli­gi­bil­i­ty of the costs of pre­ven­tive activ­i­ties relat­ing to secu­ri­ty, and, sec­ond­ly, the joint pro­duc­tion with the Cer­cle de Coopéra­tion of devel­op­ment NGOs of a char­ter to com­bat harass­ment, exploita­tion and sex­u­al abuse.

As you read through this report, you will see that our devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion is retain­ing its focus on Africa, and in par­tic­u­lar the Sahel. Lux­em­bourg has become a major play­er there and is tak­ing on the role of Euro­pean lead part­ner in many part­ner coun­tries in the sec­tors of voca­tion­al train­ing (Sene­gal, Mali and, soon, in Burk­i­na Faso once again) and water and san­i­ta­tion (Niger). African Micro­fi­nance Week, which in Octo­ber brought togeth­er more than 800 par­tic­i­pants in Oua­gadougou, was anoth­er resound­ing suc­cess in our devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion in a region that faces many chal­lenges. Evolv­ing with­in the dif­fi­cult con­text of the triple nexus between devel­op­ment, human­i­tar­i­an aid and peace, we also place a spe­cial empha­sis on respect of human rights and inter­na­tion­al human­i­tar­i­an law.

Lux­em­bourg remains extreme­ly com­mit­ted in the field of human­i­tar­i­an affairs, which faces many chal­lenges. A self-eval­u­a­tion and an update to our human­i­tar­i­an aid strat­e­gy were com­menced in 2019 and we have joined the HQAI (Human­i­tar­i­an Qual­i­ty Assur­ance Ini­tia­tive). We have also sup­port­ed the pro­duc­tion and pub­li­ca­tion of the Guide­lines on the Inclu­sion of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties in Human­i­tar­i­an Action.

At the oper­a­tional lev­el, our Emer​gency​.lu pro­gramme has received Euro­pean Civ­il Pro­tec­tion Pool cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. This pool has been cre­at­ed to strength­en Euro­pean coop­er­a­tion in the area of civ­il pro­tec­tion and to facil­i­tate a faster, more coor­di­nat­ed and more effec­tive response by Europe in the event of nat­ur­al or man-made dis­as­ters. In 2019, our mod­ule was trig­gered by the Emer­gency Response Coor­di­na­tion Cen­tre (ERCC) and deployed to sup­port the human­i­tar­i­an response to the hur­ri­canes in Mozam­bique and the Bahamas.

It is not pos­si­ble for me to list, in this intro­duc­tion, all the progress that was made last year in numer­ous fields, but I would like to stress that the speed and scope of the mea­sures tak­en to achieve the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals remain inad­e­quate in glob­al terms. The start of 2020 was marked by the COVID-19 cri­sis, as well as the start of the decade of action to achieve the SDGs by 2030. Bold efforts will be need­ed glob­al­ly, local­ly and indi­vid­u­al­ly in order to attain these goals and put an end to pover­ty, pre­serve our plan­et and build a peace­ful world.

I would like to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to thank all the co-work­ers at Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion, as well as all the vol­un­teers and pro­fes­sion­als at the NGOs, who do remark­able work. Togeth­er, we will find sus­tain­able solu­tions to the chal­lenges of pover­ty, gen­der equal­i­ty and cli­mate change.