COVID-19

The coun­tries of the South, whose pub­lic health sys­tems are often already frag­ile, are par­tic­u­lar­ly bad­ly impact­ed by the effects of the health cri­sis linked to COVID-19, with vul­ner­a­ble groups on the front line suf­fer­ing dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly. In this con­text, start­ing in the first quar­ter of 2020 Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion pro­vid­ed a coor­di­nat­ed response, both in terms of devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion and on human­i­tar­i­an action. It sought on the one hand to direct­ly sup­port its part­ner coun­tries bilat­er­al­ly, and on the oth­er hand to help with the inter­na­tion­al community’s response.

In order to max­imise the con­sis­ten­cy and impact of its sup­port, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion worked in a ful­ly inte­grat­ed man­ner with­in the Team Europe approach of the Euro­pean Union and its Mem­ber States. This is the favoured Euro­pean frame­work for the exter­nal response to COVID-19, both for meet­ing short-term and vital­ly impor­tant needs and also for struc­tur­al socio-eco­nom­ic sup­port form­ing part of medi­um and long-term assis­tance. At the end of 2020, Luxembourg’s con­tri­bu­tions thus amount­ed to near­ly EUR69 mil­lion, with pri­or­i­ty allo­ca­tion of resources to West Africa, home to five of Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s sev­en pri­or­i­ty part­ner countries.

At the bilat­er­al lev­el, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion pro­vid­ed, among oth­er things, direct aid of near­ly EUR14 mil­lion for the health emer­gency in Cabo Verde, Burk­i­na Faso, Mali, Niger, Sene­gal, Laos, Mon­go­lia, Myan­mar, Nicaragua, El Sal­vador and Koso­vo. This sup­port, some of which will be con­tin­ued beyond 2020, was imple­ment­ed through LuxDev, Luxembourg’s devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion agency. In some part­ner coun­tries where Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion imple­ments mul­ti­an­nu­al health pro­grammes, such as Laos and Sene­gal, efforts have in addi­tion been ini­ti­at­ed with the nation­al part­ners to boost or incor­po­rate spe­cif­ic sup­port ele­ments. The lat­ter relate, specif­i­cal­ly, to con­sol­i­dat­ing health sys­tems and pan­dem­ic pre­ven­tion and treat­ment mech­a­nisms, includ­ing through the pro­vi­sion of tech­ni­cal assis­tance and of key equip­ment, includ­ing cold chain facilities.

In addi­tion to this sup­port, there is tar­get­ed and the­mat­ic finan­cial sup­port for devel­op­ment and human­i­tar­i­an action to mul­ti­lat­er­al actors and instru­ments, non-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions and to oper­a­tions run by the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross (ICRC). In line with its mul­ti­lat­er­al com­mit­ments, Lux­em­bourg thus strength­ened its sup­port to cer­tain of its major part­ners, includ­ing the Vac­cine Alliance (Gavi), the Glob­al Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuber­cu­lo­sis and Malar­ia, the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) and the Unit­ed Nations Office for the Coor­di­na­tion of Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs (UNOCHA). To con­tribute to fair dis­tri­b­u­tion of COVID-19 vac­cines, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the coun­tries of the glob­al South, Lux­em­bourg also decid­ed to make a com­mit­ment with a bud­get of EUR1 mil­lion to the COV­AX inter­na­tion­al shar­ing mech­a­nism, under the aegis of Gavi, the Vac­cine Alliance. Recog­nis­ing the impor­tance of the con­tri­bu­tions and part­ner­ships of Lux­em­bour­gish and inter­na­tion­al non-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions local­ly, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion also pro­vid­ed addi­tion­al financ­ing and facil­i­tat­ed the reori­en­ta­tion of activ­i­ties towards the response to COVID-19.