Introduction

Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion ear­marks about 30% of the offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance bud­get per year to sup­port the pro­grammes and projects of mul­ti­lat­er­al organ­i­sa­tions in order to con­tribute to the imple­men­ta­tion of the 17 Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) set out in the Unit­ed Nations Agen­da 2030. Mul­ti­lat­er­al coop­er­a­tion is also a main­stay of ​“On the way to 2030”, Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s gen­er­al strat­e­gy from 2018.

In 2021, progress in imple­ment­ing the 17 SDGs in 2021 was ham­pered for the sec­ond year in a row by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. The dam­age done by the pan­dem­ic to access to health care, edu­ca­tion and food is con­sid­er­able, and the need to address it quick­ly and effec­tive­ly has been a high pri­or­i­ty for mul­ti­lat­er­al cooperation.

The mul­ti­lat­er­al coop­er­a­tion com­po­nent ded­i­cat­ed to glob­al health accounts for 15% of Luxembourg’s offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance. As regards the com­mit­ment by mul­ti­lat­er­al coop­er­a­tion to com­bat­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Lux­em­bourg increased its sup­port for sev­er­al mul­ti­lat­er­al ini­tia­tives in 2021.

Lux­em­bourg has thus con­tributed EUR4 mil­lion to the COV­AX mar­ket com­mit­ment financ­ing instru­ment, enabling 92 low- and mid­dle-income economies to be sup­plied with donor-fund­ed dos­es of vac­cine. In addi­tion to its finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion to the COV­AX mech­a­nism, Lux­em­bourg has made its first dona­tions of vac­cines under this frame­work. As of 
18 Feb­ru­ary 2021, Lux­em­bourg had ini­ti­at­ed pro­ce­dures for the dona­tion of more than 600000 dos­es of vac­cine through the COV­AX mech­a­nism, of which 209850 dos­es of vac­cine were deliv­ered to Egypt, Ghana, Pak­istan, Rwan­da and Viet­nam. Lux­em­bourg has also made a bilat­er­al dona­tion of 56000 dos­es of AstraZeneca vac­cine to Cabo Verde under the Euro­pean Union Civ­il Pro­tec­tion Mechanism.

Lux­em­bourg also con­tributed EUR2 mil­lion to the C19RM mech­a­nism, which is the COVID-19 response mech­a­nism estab­lished by the Glob­al Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuber­cu­lo­sis and Malaria.

The activ­i­ties under mul­ti­lat­er­al coop­er­a­tion have large­ly been defined by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, but efforts to com­bat oth­er endem­ic dis­eases, such as AIDS, tuber­cu­lo­sis and malar­ia, have not been neglected.

Indeed, 2021 marks 40 years since the first report­ed HIV/AIDS infec­tions and the adop­tion of a new glob­al strat­e­gy that sets the strate­gic direc­tion to ensure that HIV/AIDS is no longer a threat to pub­lic health by 2030. In this con­text, Lux­em­bourg sup­ports the pri­or­i­ty giv­en to access to health care for vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly women and girls, who are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ed by HIV/AIDS. For exam­ple, at the Gen­er­a­tion Equal­i­ty Forum in July 2021, Lux­em­bourg announced sup­port of EUR700000 for the Edu­ca­tion Plus ini­tia­tive. The ini­tia­tive, launched by UNAIDS in part­ner­ship with UNICEF, UNF­PA, UN Women and UNESCO, aims to enable girls in sub-Saha­ran Africa, often not attend­ing school and dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly infect­ed with HIV/AIDS, to com­plete their education.

In July 2021, dur­ing the vis­it by UNAIDS Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Win­nie Byany­i­ma, Lux­em­bourg signed a new strate­gic part­ner­ship agree­ment for the 2022 – 2026 peri­od with UNAIDS, aligned with its new 2021 – 2026 glob­al strat­e­gy to com­bat HIV/AIDS.

In addi­tion, in order to rekin­dle region­al polit­i­cal com­mit­ment at the high­est lev­el for com­bat­ing HIV/AIDS in sub-Saha­ran Africa, which is dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ed by the dis­ease, from 31 Octo­ber to 2 Novem­ber Min­is­ter Fay­ot par­tic­i­pat­ed in the High-Lev­el Region­al Sum­mit for HIV/AIDS in West and Cen­tral Africa in Dakar, organ­ised with finan­cial sup­port from Luxembourg.

From Jan­u­ary 2020 to Decem­ber 2021, Lux­em­bourg also chaired the Belgium/​Netherlands/​Portugal/​Luxembourg group­ing of the UNAIDS Coor­di­nat­ing Board.

The part­ner­ship with the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) has been strength­ened through mul­ti­ple com­mit­ments by Lux­em­bourg, which in Decem­ber 2021 became co-chair of the Polio Part­ners Group (PPG) of the Glob­al Polio Erad­i­ca­tion Ini­tia­tive (GPEI), and which has since 2020 chaired the Joint Coor­di­nat­ing Board of the Spe­cial Pro­gramme for Research and Train­ing in Trop­i­cal Dis­eases. Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is also sup­port­ing ongo­ing reform work with­in the WHO to enable it to increase its bud­get through more com­pul­so­ry con­tri­bu­tions from its mem­ber states.

Anoth­er long-stand­ing part­ner of Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is the Glob­al Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuber­cu­lo­sis and Malar­ia, which remains the world’s lead­ing provider of grants for com­bat­ing AIDS, tuber­cu­lo­sis and malar­ia in mid­dle- and low-income coun­tries. Lux­em­bourg assumed the role of alter­nate mem­ber of the ​“Point Sev­en” con­stituen­cy on the Glob­al Fund’s Board in July 2021.

In par­al­lel with top­ics relat­ing to glob­al health, oth­er the­mat­ic pri­or­i­ties were addressed in the annu­al con­sul­ta­tions with the New York-based UN agen­cies in Decem­ber 2021 (UNICEF, UNF­PA, UNDP and UN Women). Dis­cus­sions focused on the agen­cies’ new strate­gic plans and the dif­fi­cul­ties agen­cies have been faced with in the con­text of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. At the same time, Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion took this oppor­tu­ni­ty to present its new gen­der, envi­ron­ment and inclusive/​innovative finance strate­gies to the agen­cies it met with.

In order to ensure that our trust­ed part­ners are able to con­tin­ue their work under pre­dictable con­di­tions, with a sense of secu­ri­ty, Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has signed sev­er­al strate­gic part­ner­ship agree­ments. In this con­text, Lux­em­bourg par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 12^th replen­ish­ment of the resources of the Inter­na­tion­al Fund for Agri­cul­tur­al Devel­op­ment (IFAD), cov­er­ing the 2022 – 2024 peri­od. Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion announced three annu­al con­tri­bu­tions of EUR1.3 mil­lion, totalling EUR3.9 mil­lion. In addi­tion, four new frame­work agree­ments (2022−2025) were signed with UNDP, UNCDF, UNICEF and UNF­PA, with a total bud­get of EUR80550000. These frame­work agree­ments are aligned with the agen­cies’ strate­gic pri­or­i­ties as well as with the over­all strat­e­gy of Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation.

Since edu­ca­tion remains an impor­tant pri­or­i­ty for Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion, Min­is­ter Fay­ot par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Glob­al Edu­ca­tion Sum­mit: Financ­ing GPE2021 – 2025, at which he announced a mul­ti­an­nu­al con­tri­bu­tion of EUR2.5 mil­lion for the 2021 – 2025 peri­od. The Glob­al Part­ner­ship for Edu­ca­tion (GPE) is a glob­al fund focused exclu­sive­ly on trans­form­ing edu­ca­tion in low-income coun­tries. In view of the impor­tance placed by Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion on edu­ca­tion and tech­ni­cal and voca­tion­al train­ing, the GPE’s work is direct­ly aligned with Luxembourg’s pri­or­i­ties in this field. Addi­tion­al­ly, Lux­em­bourg has decid­ed to join the School Meals Coali­tion, whose mis­sion is to rapid­ly improve the nutri­tion, health and edu­ca­tion of school-age chil­dren around the world.