Foreword by the minister

Dear friends of Lux­em­bourg Cooperation, 

Although after 2020 we had all hoped that things would be dif­fer­ent, there is no escap­ing the fact that the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has con­tin­ued to impact our lives in 2021. The health cri­sis has sig­nif­i­cant­ly reversed progress on pover­ty, access to edu­ca­tion and the food and secu­ri­ty cri­sis. These con­se­quences have had the great­est impact on pop­u­la­tions in the ​“least devel­oped” coun­tries. It has there­fore been par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant in our work to ensure that the qual­i­ty of our sup­port to our part­ners does not dimin­ish, but is instead con­stant­ly adjust­ed and improved. Our goal was and remains the same: to leave no one behind!

In order to be effec­tive and have a real impact, we must have ade­quate resources, in terms of human resources, exper­tise and bud­gets. With regard to finan­cial resources, we saw a pos­i­tive devel­op­ment in 2021. Fol­low­ing an unavoid­able reduc­tion of about EUR43 mil­lion in the finan­cial enve­lope for offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance due to the decline in gross nation­al income in 2020, the amount of finan­cial resources we were able to ded­i­cate to offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance increased once more in 2021. In total, a record net amount of EUR456 mil­lion was spent on Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s activities.

This has enabled us, for exam­ple, to strength­en our sup­port in the face of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and increase our con­tri­bu­tion to the COV­AX mar­ket com­mit­ment financ­ing instru­ment from EUR2 mil­lion to EUR4 mil­lion. This instru­ment is enabling 92 low- and mid­dle-income economies to be sup­plied with donor-fund­ed dos­es of vac­cine. Lux­em­bourg has also com­mit­ted to donat­ing more than 600000 dos­es of vac­cines through the COV­AX mech­a­nism. Togeth­er with the Min­istry of Health, Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has also been active bilat­er­al­ly and has donat­ed 56000 dos­es of AstraZeneca vac­cine to Cabo Verde, as well as pro­vid­ing ven­ti­la­tors to Tunisia and vac­cine refrig­er­a­tors to Burk­i­na Faso.

How­ev­er, in addi­tion to COVID-19, oth­er wor­ry­ing devel­op­ments took place, or even wors­ened, in 2021. We must acknowl­edge that in many coun­tries the over­all sit­u­a­tion and pover­ty rates are not improv­ing, but in fact quite the reverse. This is true in many coun­tries in the Sahel, where the crit­i­cal secu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion, the impact of cli­mate change, per­ma­nent polit­i­cal insta­bil­i­ty, the con­tin­ued absence of a state pres­ence in rur­al areas and demo­graph­ic pres­sure are mutu­al­ly inter­de­pen­dent fac­tors that are hav­ing a major impact on people’s liv­ing conditions.

In these uncer­tain times, it is reas­sur­ing that we can count on our reli­able part­ners in this region. Dur­ing a work­ing vis­it in Novem­ber, we were able to reaf­firm our good rela­tions with Sene­gal dur­ing a part­ner­ship com­mit­tee meet­ing. This allowed us to take stock of the achieve­ments of Luxembourg’s sup­port, which focus­es on the health sec­tor as well as on voca­tion­al train­ing and labour mar­ket inte­gra­tion for young peo­ple. Niger is anoth­er long-stand­ing part­ner of Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion in the Sahel region, with devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion rela­tions dat­ing back more than 30 years. The 4^th Indica­tive Coop­er­a­tion Pro­gramme (ICP) was signed in 2021. With an indica­tive finan­cial enve­lope of EUR144.5 mil­lion, this is our largest ICP so far, enabling us to lay the ground­work for con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion dur­ing the 2022 – 2026 peri­od. Giv­en the sit­u­a­tion in the Sahel, it will be impor­tant to broad­en and diver­si­fy our bilat­er­al coop­er­a­tion base by explor­ing poten­tial part­ner­ships with devel­op­ing coun­tries in oth­er regions.

Beyond con­flict sit­u­a­tions, our inter­ven­tions and the issues linked to them are increas­ing­ly impact­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis. Cli­mate change pos­es a real threat to all aspects of our soci­ety, and sci­en­tists are unan­i­mous in stat­ing that it will con­tin­ue to wors­en in the future if we do not act. We there­fore have a clear respon­si­bil­i­ty in this con­nec­tion and must rethink our strate­gic poli­cies and actions so that we can bet­ter tar­get those who are in great­est need. Our geo­graph­ic and the­mat­ic pri­or­i­ties remain rel­e­vant, but the goal is to achieve even more sus­tain­able, resilient and inclu­sive development.

With this in mind, in 2021 we devel­oped a new Envi­ron­ment and Cli­mate Change strat­e­gy. This aims to place all devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion activ­i­ties with­in a sus­tain­able, renew­able and resilient devel­op­ment dynam­ic by 2030. This par­a­digm shift toward a more sus­tain­able approach is a lengthy but urgent process, and we are firm­ly com­mit­ted to mov­ing for­ward on this path.

In line with Luxembourg’s fem­i­nist for­eign pol­i­cy, gen­der equal­i­ty and the empow­er­ment of women and girls are oth­er pri­or­i­ty themes at the heart of our devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion chal­lenges. In gen­er­al, but par­tic­u­lar­ly in the dif­fi­cult con­text of the pan­dem­ic, girls and women con­tin­ue to be par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to polit­i­cal, social, eco­nom­ic or cli­mate change exclu­sion. It is there­fore espe­cial­ly impor­tant to defend and pro­tect their rights in a sus­tain­able way. We thus devel­oped a new Gen­der Strat­e­gy in 2021 that under­lines the impor­tance and urgency of act­ing in this con­text. This will enable us to define the long-term ori­en­ta­tions, pri­or­i­ties and guide­lines for the gen­der dimen­sion and to pro­mote its inclu­sion across the board in all Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s activities.

In terms of our human­i­tar­i­an action, 2021 was a year of many crises, with human­i­tar­i­an inter­ven­tions becom­ing increas­ing­ly nec­es­sary in many parts of the world. The war in the Tigray region, the sit­u­a­tion in Yemen and in Syr­ia and the region­al refugee cri­sis in the Mid­dle East are just a few exam­ples. In view of the many ongo­ing chal­lenges, I have increased the human­i­tar­i­an aid bud­get for 2022 so that our emer­gency aid can be even more effec­tive and sub­stan­tial. In addi­tion, we have just devel­oped a new human­i­tar­i­an strat­e­gy, in which we pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the pro­mo­tion of tech­no­log­i­cal and logis­ti­cal inno­va­tion, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion with Luxembourg’s know-how, and inter­na­tion­al human­i­tar­i­an law.

As part of our devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion pol­i­cy, we also attach par­tic­u­lar impor­tance to the sys­tem of mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism by ear­mark­ing about 30% of the offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance bud­get each year to sup­port­ing pro­grammes and projects run by mul­ti­lat­er­al organ­i­sa­tions. In this con­nec­tion, in 2021 we have been able to renew our ties with our long-term part­ners, notably through the sign­ing of new part­ner­ship agree­ments with the Unit­ed Nations Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP), the Unit­ed Nations Cap­i­tal Devel­op­ment Fund (UNCDF), the Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Fund (UNF­PA) and UNICEF.

In terms of the future of our devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion work, inno­va­tion, research and mod­erni­sa­tion will play a key role in ensur­ing that our impact is as strong as pos­si­ble. While con­tin­u­ing our tra­di­tion­al coop­er­a­tion in the area of basic social ser­vices such as health, edu­ca­tion and access to water, espe­cial­ly in the least devel­oped coun­tries, we will place greater empha­sis on inno­v­a­tive finan­cial mech­a­nisms and new tech­nolo­gies. In these areas, Lux­em­bourg can make an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion. Thus, we can build on a dynam­ic and inno­v­a­tive local ecosys­tem in the infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor. Thanks to its exper­tise in this vast micro-sys­tem, Lux­em­bourg plays a lead­ing role in the field of inclu­sive finance, which con­tributes to the pro­mo­tion of more respon­si­ble devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion through inno­v­a­tive and inclu­sive finan­cial instruments.

In many ways, we must admit that 2021 was not an easy year, but for­tu­nate­ly we did not have to over­come its many chal­lenges alone. Thanks to our sta­ble part­ner­ships across Europe and inter­na­tion­al­ly, and the com­mit­ment of all the actors involved in devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion, we have been able to make the best of things and to ensure that the liv­ing con­di­tions of many peo­ple have improved. I would there­fore like to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to thank all those who have con­tributed to our achieve­ments. That includes the many NGOs, whose work is essen­tial in reach­ing local com­mu­ni­ties and pop­u­la­tions and strength­en­ing civ­il soci­ety in the field, all the vol­un­teers and pro­fes­sion­als on the ground in human­i­tar­i­an crises and in part­ner coun­tries, peo­ple car­ry­ing out our activ­i­ties from the Lux­em­bourg head­quar­ters, our pri­vate sec­tor part­ners and all those who, in one way or anoth­er, sup­port our work – with­out your courage and ded­i­ca­tion, we could not have man­aged 2021 so effec­tive­ly! I count on you and your com­mit­ment so that we may con­tin­ue to act togeth­er for a bet­ter future for all. Thank you.