Introduction

NGOs rep­re­sent a com­ple­men­tary con­duit for bilat­er­al aid, enabling the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion to be active in coun­tries, zones and sec­tors where the min­istry does not inter­vene or which it is dif­fi­cult for it to access. Thus, the NGOs are part­ners of the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion in the fight against pover­ty and social inequal­i­ty, and are not agents of the government.

In 2021, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic con­tin­ued to have sig­nif­i­cant impacts on the work of NGOs. The MFA con­tin­ued to autho­rise real­lo­ca­tions of activ­i­ties nec­es­sary to counter the effects of the pan­dem­ic on local NGO part­ners. Where repro­gram­ming was not pos­si­ble, the MFA pro­vid­ed addi­tion­al bud­gets to the NGOs affected.

Some NGOs used the safe­ty line in 2021 to deal with the dete­ri­o­rat­ing secu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion in some coun­tries where they oper­ate. It should be not­ed that the MFA decid­ed in 2020, with­in devel­op­ment projects, to unblock resources to finance not only secu­ri­ty train­ing for local part­ners and vol­un­teers but also non-lethal equip­ment, eli­gi­ble as offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance (ODA), required in order to ensure the safe­ty of local part­ners and volunteers.

With­in the frame­work of the char­ter against sex­u­al exploita­tion, abuse and harass­ment (SEAH), the sign­ing of which is now a con­di­tion for grant­i­ng min­is­te­r­i­al approval, the Min­istry and the Cer­cle de Coopéra­tion des ONG have organ­ised train­ing cours­es to guide NGOs in the imple­men­ta­tion of the char­ter and to give them prac­ti­cal tools for imple­ment­ing it with­in each organisation.

In 2021 the NGOs dis­bursed EUR 58730101.80 for devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion activ­i­ties, main­ly through the fol­low­ing finan­cial instruments:

• Devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion frame­work agree­ments: 25 frame­work agree­ments were co-financed in 2021, includ­ing two frame­work agree­ments on a con­sor­tium basis, with a total bud­get of EUR 27604973 million.
• Co-financ­ing of devel­op­ment projects: 76 indi­vid­ual projects by 40 NGOs were sup­port­ed in 2021, at a total cost of EUR 7 686922 for the MFA share.

In total, the ODA allo­cat­ed to nation­al NGOs in 2021 was EUR 68544148.28 i.e. 22.21% of Luxembourg’s offi­cial bilat­er­al devel­op­ment assis­tance. This amount also includes the ODA allo­cat­ed to human­i­tar­i­an action (emer­gency aid, food aid, cri­sis pre­ven­tion, recon­struc­tion and reha­bil­i­ta­tion), sub­si­dies for pub­lic aware­ness-rais­ing and devel­op­ment edu­ca­tion in Lux­em­bourg, and sup­port for NGOs’ admin­is­tra­tive expenses.

The num­ber of approved NGOs and the high per­cent­age of ODA allo­cat­ed to NGOs bear wit­ness to the val­ue placed by the peo­ple of Lux­em­bourg and the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion on civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions as sep­a­rate devel­op­ment oper­a­tors. The ministry’s strong com­mit­ment to Lux­em­bour­gish NGOs is thus enabling ODA to remain at around 1% of GNI.

The Direc­torate for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs cul­ti­vates reg­u­lar, con­struc­tive dia­logue with the NGOs, rep­re­sent­ed by the Cer­cle de Coopéra­tion des ONGD of Lux­em­bourg, seen in par­tic­u­lar in the meet­ings of the MFA-NGO work­ing group, which met on six occa­sions in 2021.