Sahel

In the area of com­bat­ing com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases, includ­ing HIV/AIDS, Lux­em­bourg has con­tin­ued its sup­port for the FEVE IMPULSE project (2021−2026) imple­ment­ed by the inter­na­tion­al NGO ENDA San­té and by con­tribut­ing to the 95−95−95 strat­e­gy of the Joint Unit­ed Nations Pro­gramme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) with a par­tic­u­lar focus on vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions and cross-bor­der coop­er­a­tion, in ten coun­tries in the sub-region (Benin, Burk­i­na Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Gam­bia, Guinea-Bis­sau, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Sene­gal). Benin and Côte d’Ivoire were added as new coun­tries for inter­ven­tion in 2022, increas­ing the total project bud­get to EUR 7 377347.

The Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has con­tin­ued the part­ner­ship between the Lux­em­bourg Insti­tute of Health, the Cen­tre Hos­pi­tal­ier de Lux­em­bourg, ENDA San­té, Luxembourg’s Lab­o­ra­toire Nation­al de San­té and the Lux­em­bour­gish NGO Stop AIDS Now/​Access, in order to improve access to diag­nos­tics and treat­ment for those infect­ed with sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted dis­eases in Sene­gal and Guinea-Bis­sau (CARES project). Inno­va­tion, applied sci­en­tif­ic research and the pro­mo­tion of mul­ti-stake­hold­er part­ner­ships have become the com­mon threads for this project, which is inspired by Unit­ed Nations SDG 17 with the aim of build­ing inclu­sive part­ner­ships for effec­tive coop­er­a­tion. This com­mit­ment in the field of health is com­ple­ment­ed by the part­ner­ship on uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age with the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (since 2013), which Lux­em­bourg is sup­port­ing finan­cial­ly with a con­tri­bu­tion of EUR 8.8 mil­lion from 2022 to 2024.

Beyond the health sec­tor, Lux­em­bourg is sup­port­ing the Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Orga­ni­za­tion (FAO) to improve the pro­tec­tion of human health, food secu­ri­ty and sus­tain­able trade in food in Sene­gal, Burk­i­na Faso and Mali. The year 2022 also saw the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Agri+ project imple­ment­ed by the NGO SOS Faim. This aims to improve financ­ing con­di­tions for fam­i­ly agri­cul­ture in Burk­i­na Faso and Mali.

In terms of gov­er­nance, Lux­em­bourg has con­tin­ued its sup­port for the tech­ni­cal assis­tance cen­tre in the area of build­ing macro-eco­nom­ic man­age­ment capac­i­ties for the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund. It organ­is­es sem­i­nars and immer­sion ses­sions to train offi­cials in par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries in pub­lic finance and good gov­er­nance. Sup­port from Lux­em­bourg has also made it pos­si­ble for train­ing to be deliv­ered in the finan­cial and bank­ing sec­tor by ATTF/​House of Train­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Cen­tral Bank of West African States (BCEAO).

The Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is also sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of micro­fi­nance and inclu­sive and inno­v­a­tive finance through sev­er­al impact invest­ment vehi­cles, eli­gi­ble to oper­ate in the region. For exam­ple, the Finan­cial Inclu­sion Fund sup­ports finan­cial inter­me­di­aries in devel­op­ing ser­vices tai­lored to the needs of the com­mu­ni­ties they serve (e.g. edu­ca­tion, health and dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion sec­tors). The BLOC Smart Africa fund is ded­i­cat­ed to start-ups active in the infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy and com­mu­ni­ca­tion sec­tor. In the area of agri­cul­ture, the Small­hold­er Safe­ty Net Up-Scal­ing Pro­gramme (SSNUP) aims to strength­en the resilience of three mil­lion small­hold­ers and their fam­i­lies, who today are among the groups most vul­ner­a­ble to nat­ur­al shocks. The objec­tive of the Agri-Busi­ness Cap­i­tal Fund (ABC Fund) is to mobilise pub­lic and pri­vate funds to finance agri­cul­tur­al val­ue chains in devel­op­ing coun­tries to con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of new mar­kets and the cre­ation of job oppor­tu­ni­ties. Final­ly, the Bam­boo-UNCDF Ini­tia­tive for the Least Devel­oped coun­tries (BUILD Fund) aims to sup­port small and medi­um-sized enter­pris­es with a par­tic­u­lar focus on sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence among young peo­ple and women.

In 2022, Lux­em­bourg also active­ly pur­sued its com­mit­ment to dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion and research. The LuxWAyS project (EUR 3.5 mil­lion for 2020 – 2024) aims to pro­vide sup­port and train­ing to 10 expert teachers/​researchers to ensure that a train­ing cur­ricu­lum is put in place with the long-term aim of train­ing high­ly qual­i­fied local pro­fes­sion­als who would then join the labour mar­ket. The UCAD (Dakar) and the Joseph Ki-Zer­bo Uni­ver­si­ty (Oua­gadougou) are par­tic­i­pat­ing as bench­mark uni­ver­si­ties in West Africa, with the SNT (Uni­ver­si­ty of Lux­em­bourg) as a bench­mark in Lux­em­bourg. Also in the inter­est of research, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has for­malised its deci­sion to con­tribute to the estab­lish­ment of a devel­op­ment pol­i­cy impact assess­ment unit at the Lux­em­bourg Insti­tute of Socio-Eco­nom­ic Research (LIS­ER) (EUR 1 25 mil­lion for 2022 – 2023).

Its long-stand­ing com­mit­ment in the Sahel led Lux­em­bourg to join the Sahel Alliance, of which it has been an active mem­ber since 2018. The Sahel Alliance seeks to improve coor­di­na­tion of the devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion actions of the var­i­ous donors and to rein­force their impact on the ground.