International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

Luxembourg’s co-chairmanship of the Donor Support Group (DSG) of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for the 2021-2022 cycle concluded with the DSG’s annual meeting in Luxembourg, from 31 May to 1 June 2022, co-chaired by Manuel Tonnar, Director for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, and Robert Mardini, the ICRC’s Director-General. The DSG’s annual meeting brought together Franz Fayot, Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, Peter Maurer, the President of the ICRC, the eight directors of the organisation and the representatives of the 22 members of the DSG, to discuss the humanitarian challenges and opportunities to strengthen the ICRC as a neutral and impartial organisation in an increasingly polarised world. The central theme of the DSG co-presidency was: “preserving and strengthening neutral, impartial and independent humanitarian space in protracted crises and fragile contexts”.

On 1 June 2022, Franz Fayot and Peter Maurer signed the agreement on the status, privileges and immunities of the ICRC in Luxembourg, aimed at setting up the organisation’s first ever “Delegation for Cyberspace”, based in Luxembourg. On 17 November 2022, this physical delegation was inaugurated in the presence of Minister Franz Fayot.

On 8 November 2022, the first “Symposium on Cybersecurity and Data Protection in Humanitarian Action” was held in Luxembourg, organised in partnership with the ICRC, the Luxembourg Red Cross, the Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity, the University of Luxembourg and the National Commission for Data Protection (CNPD). The symposium brought together the experience and expertise of more than 120 people from the key stakeholders in the public, private and humanitarian sectors, as well as civil society and academia, in order to identify, and if possible anticipate, the challenges and concerns associated with the use of technology in humanitarian action, and to jointly find ways to overcome them.