Cooperation with research stakeholders

The year 2022 saw sig­nif­i­cant efforts by the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion to find spe­cif­ic areas for its col­lab­o­ra­tion with the research ecosys­tem through col­lab­o­ra­tions and joint projects to con­tribute to the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals. Thus, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion would like to do more to sup­port the devel­op­ment of research capac­i­ties and exper­tise in the North as well as in the Glob­al South, and to do so on a more sys­tem­at­ic basis. It has worked towards both strength­en­ing exist­ing insti­tu­tion­al links and build­ing new part­ner­ships with research stakeholders.

Dis­cus­sions with the Min­istry of High­er Edu­ca­tion and Research (MESR) have been stepped up con­sid­er­ably, to meet the shared objec­tives of the nation­al research and inno­va­tion strat­e­gy, max­imis­ing the glob­al impact of nation­al efforts through a sys­tem­at­ic review of research results for use and poten­tial trans­fer in devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion efforts. Many of the chal­lenges fac­ing devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion pol­i­cy can ben­e­fit from tech­nolo­gies and results from the research ecosys­tem. It is with this in mind that the Direc­torate for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs, the MESR and the Nation­al Research Fund (FNR) have agreed to estab­lish a joint instru­ment called Lux­Aid BRIDGES, which will finance research projects with the capac­i­ty to advance the objec­tives of devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion and human­i­tar­i­an affairs pol­i­cy through annu­al calls for projects, the first of which will take place in 2023.

In line with its ​“Road to 2030” strat­e­gy, the Direc­torate for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs has also pur­sued its aim of extend­ing its sup­port to the aca­d­e­m­ic world and sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of research capac­i­ties and exper­tise in the field of inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion. The aim is to con­tribute to the cre­ation of exper­tise in Lux­em­bourg that can pro­vide analy­ses of the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s poli­cies, with the spe­cif­ic aim of sup­port­ing the effec­tive design and imple­men­ta­tion of its programmes.

It is with this in mind that in July 2022 the Direc­torate for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs and the Lux­em­bourg Insti­tute of Socio-Eco­nom­ic Research (LIS­ER) signed a state­ment on the cre­ation of an impact assess­ment unit for devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion poli­cies, based at LIS­ER and financed by the Direc­torate for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human Affairs, with a bud­get of EUR 1.25 mil­lion for the first two years of imple­men­ta­tion. In this con­text, we note the close col­lab­o­ra­tion between LIS­ER and the Abdul Latif Jameel Pover­ty Action Lab (J‑PAL) in Paris, known for the work of Esther Duflo and Abhi­jit Baner­jee, win­ners of the Nobel Prize in Eco­nom­ics in 2019, on com­bat­ing poverty.

Oth­er col­lab­o­ra­tions with Lux­em­bourg research insti­tu­tions have been strength­ened, in rela­tion to joint projects cur­rent­ly being planned. Thus, the Direc­torate for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs, LuxDev and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Luxembourg’s Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Cen­tre for Secu­ri­ty of Trust (SnT) have con­duct­ed a study to sus­tain (and region­al­ly extend) the excel­lent results of the LuxWays project (Luxembourg/​West-Africa Lab for High­er Edu­ca­tion Capac­i­ty Build­ing in Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and Emerg­ing Top­ics in ICT— 4Dev). The Direc­torate for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs has been sup­port­ing the project since 2020, and it is imple­ment­ed in part­ner­ship with enti­ties in Sene­gal and Burk­i­na Faso.

The excel­lent col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and the var­i­ous fac­ul­ties of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lux­em­bourg will be fur­ther strength­ened and made more sys­tem­at­ic, in par­tic­u­lar through spe­cif­ic schol­ar­ships for stu­dents from Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion part­ner coun­tries and/​or coun­tries with projects. In con­trast to oth­er types of schol­ar­ships aimed at attract­ing tal­ent to Lux­em­bourg, schol­ar­ships financed with offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance will focus par­tic­u­lar­ly on strength­en­ing local capac­i­ties and cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in the coun­tries of ori­gin of the select­ed recipients.

In 2022, togeth­er with the NGO Appui au développe­ment autonome (ADA), the Min­istry con­tin­ued its finan­cial sup­port to the ADA Chair at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Luxembourg’s Fac­ul­ty of Law, Eco­nom­ics and Finance (FDEF). The Chair works on research in Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al finan­cial law with a par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on all aspects of inclu­sive and inno­v­a­tive finance and fin­tech. Each year, the Chair organ­is­es the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of pro­fes­sion­als in the sec­tor via the Cer­tifi­cate in Law and Reg­u­la­tion of Inclu­sive Finance, organ­is­es con­fer­ences on rel­e­vant top­ics relat­ing to finan­cial law and inclu­sive finance, pub­lish­es high-qual­i­ty research in the field of finan­cial law and inclu­sive finance and par­tic­i­pates in nation­al, Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences. Thus, the Chair con­tributes to the rep­u­ta­tion of the Grand Duchy of Lux­em­bourg as a Euro­pean hub for the law on and reg­u­la­tion of inclu­sive finance and advances research on reg­u­la­to­ry aspects that are of nation­al inter­est for its competitiveness.

Final­ly, in 2022, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion con­tin­ued to cre­ate new part­ner­ships, with the Lux­em­bourg Insti­tute of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (LIST), for exam­ple, and deep­ened its col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Lux­em­bourg Insti­tute of Health (LIH), with which it is already col­lab­o­rat­ing in Laos and West Africa.

Inter­na­tion­al­ly, in 2022 the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion con­tin­ued to build on its long-stand­ing part­ner­ship with the Cen­tre for Africa-Europe Rela­tions (ECDPM), in Maas­tricht (in the Nether­lands), on research top­ics linked to Euro­pean pol­i­cy in rela­tion to the African con­ti­nent, and with the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and uni­ver­si­ties in the Nether­lands, Switzer­land and Lux­em­bourg on the sub­ject of data pro­tec­tion in human­i­tar­i­an contexts.