Central America

This new sub-region­al strat­e­gy lays down three pri­or­i­ty themes:

1. the socio-eco­nom­ic inte­gra­tion of women and young people;
2. cli­mate resilience and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty; and
3. social cohe­sion and human rights, includ­ing for migrants.

These areas are sup­port­ed by two cross-cut­ting themes, which will guide inter­ven­tions in the pri­or­i­ty areas and facil­i­tate the achieve­ment of their objec­tives: (i) inclu­sive and inno­v­a­tive finance; and (ii) dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion and cyber­se­cu­ri­ty. This new strate­gic direc­tion is accom­pa­nied by a change in the phys­i­cal pres­ence in the sub-region. The embassy’s offices in Nicaragua, a for­mer pri­or­i­ty part­ner coun­try, had to be closed in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary 2022 due to the con­tin­ued dete­ri­o­ra­tion of the socio-polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try. Cos­ta Rica has been iden­ti­fied as the best option for a new geo­graph­i­cal loca­tion for the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s offices.

With regard to the region­al pro­grammes cur­rent­ly being imple­ment­ed in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Lux­em­bourg remains an impor­tant part­ner in the Cen­tral Amer­i­can Inte­gra­tion Sys­tem (SICA), par­tic­u­lar­ly through a region­al project for female entre­pre­neurs with the cen­tre for the pro­mo­tion of micro and small busi­ness in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca (CEN­PROMYPE). This is a key project ded­i­cat­ed to equal­i­ty between men and women and the pro­mo­tion of women’s eco­nom­ic rights. Hav­ing per­formed well in the past, the pro­gramme is cur­rent­ly in its sec­ond phase of fund­ing, which runs until 2025.

The ​“Forestry and Cli­mate Fund” (FCCF) impact invest­ment fund was launched in 2017 at Luxembourg’s ini­tia­tive, as a pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship. It aims to pro­mote sus­tain­able tim­ber exploita­tion and asso­ci­at­ed val­ue chains in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca. The Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion sup­port­ed the FCCF through tech­ni­cal assis­tance from LuxDev until the end of 2022. Tech­ni­cal assis­tance will again be pro­vid­ed as part of a region­al sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment project, due to start in 2023, which will take into account entire val­ue chains and the inclu­sion of local people.

At the sub-region­al lev­el, the MFA also sup­port­ed the NGOADA in its assis­tance to RED­CAM­IF (Red Cen­troamer­i­cana y del Caribe de Micro­fi­nan­zas), a region­al net­work that aims to pro­mote the micro­finance indus­try and its eco­nom­ic and social impact in the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean region. In 2022, ADA sup­port­ed the dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion process­es of RED­CAM­IF net­work mem­bers through a tran­si­tion project, while the two organ­i­sa­tions are devel­op­ing a new mul­ti­an­nu­al programme.

At the end of 2022, Lux­em­bourg launched a sec­ond phase of its sup­port to migrant women in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Domini­can Repub­lic, through a region­al project with the Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion for Migra­tion (IOM). In Sep­tem­ber 2022, a new pro­gramme with UN Women start­ed, seek­ing to pro­mote the finan­cial inclu­sion of women in the north­ern tri­an­gle (Guatemala, Hon­duras, El Sal­vador). A pro­gramme with the Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Fund (UNF­PA) seek­ing to reduce preg­nan­cies among Afro-descen­dant ado­les­cents will begin in 2023. In addi­tion, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and the Min­istry of Finance have joint­ly con­tributed to the third phase of the tech­ni­cal assis­tance pro­gramme of CAP­TAC-DR (Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund region­al tech­ni­cal assis­tance cen­tre for Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Pana­ma and the Domini­can Repub­lic). This cen­tre, based in Guatemala, pro­vides tech­ni­cal assis­tance to its sev­en mem­ber coun­tries, tar­get­ing capac­i­ty-build­ing for insti­tu­tions and indi­vid­u­als for the imple­men­ta­tion of sound macro­eco­nom­ic and finan­cial policies.