Introduction

The Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion remains a reli­able part­ner for mul­ti­lat­er­al organ­i­sa­tions, which it sup­ports through con­tri­bu­tions to core resources, the­mat­ic con­tri­bu­tions and sup­port for pro­grammes and projects con­cen­trat­ed main­ly in its part­ner coun­tries. In par­al­lel with this finan­cial sup­port, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is also active in sub­stan­tive ways by sup­port­ing spe­cif­ic ini­tia­tives, poli­cies and tech­ni­cal exchanges with its mul­ti­lat­er­al part­ners. For exam­ple, Lux­em­bourg is active­ly con­tribut­ing to ongo­ing efforts to reform the inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment sys­tem, in terms of both poli­cies and programmes.

Luxembourg’s con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and the achieve­ment of Agen­da 2030 was recalled dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of Luxembourg’s Vol­un­tary Nation­al Review (VNR) at the Unit­ed Nations High-Lev­el Polit­i­cal Forum on Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment in July 2022 as well as dur­ing the annu­al con­sul­ta­tions with UNICEF, the Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Fund (UNF­PA), the Unit­ed Nations Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) and the Unit­ed Nations Cap­i­tal Devel­op­ment Fund (UNCDF), which also took place dur­ing this trip to New York. Lux­em­bourg took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to rein­force its long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to the rights and auton­o­my of women and girls world­wide by sign­ing a strate­gic part­ner­ship agree­ment with UN Women for 2023 – 2025 with a bud­get of EUR8 mil­lion. With the same aim of strength­en­ing part­ner­ships with mul­ti­lat­er­al part­ners, Lux­em­bourg has signed a new four-year strate­gic part­ner­ship agree­ment with the Inter­na­tion­al Labour Orga­ni­za­tion (2022−2025). The agree­ment pro­vides for annu­al con­tri­bu­tions to the reg­u­lar bud­get sup­ple­men­tary account of a total amount of EUR4 mil­lion, and a the­mat­ic com­mit­ment to social pro­tec­tion of EUR4 million.

Beyond the cur­rent cli­mate of uncer­tain­ty, the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic upheavals caused by the Ukrain­ian con­flict are con­tin­u­ing to ham­per the imple­men­ta­tion of the SDGs by exac­er­bat­ing exist­ing prob­lems, includ­ing food inse­cu­ri­ty and extreme pover­ty, which had already been made worse by cli­mate change and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion. Tar­get­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble in par­tic­u­lar, mul­ti­lat­er­al coop­er­a­tion has pro­mot­ed uni­ver­sal access to high-qual­i­ty food and has strength­ened its part­ner­ship with the World Food Pro­gramme (WFP) through sup­port to school feed­ing in Nicaragua, with a bud­get of EUR2 mil­lion, and its sup­port to the school feed­ing pro­gramme in frag­ile and con­flict-affect­ed areas in Niger, with a bud­get of EUR5 mil­lion. At the Devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion con­fer­ence held on 15 and 16 Decem­ber 2022, the Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Orga­ni­za­tion (FAO) and the Inter­na­tion­al Fund for Agri­cul­tur­al Devel­op­ment (IFAD) par­tic­i­pat­ed in a round table on food secu­ri­ty that explored pos­si­ble ways to com­bat food inse­cu­ri­ty more effectively.

In 2022, the Russ­ian war of aggres­sion in Ukraine had a par­tic­u­lar­ly seri­ous impact on the lives and edu­ca­tion of chil­dren liv­ing in rebel areas or near the front in the east of the coun­try. Lux­em­bourg there­fore made a con­tri­bu­tion of EUR250000 to UNICEF to sup­port its pro­gramme in the field of edu­ca­tion and pro­tec­tion in Ukraine. This 15-month project aims to improve children’s access to edu­ca­tion and pro­tec­tion in con­flict zones in east­ern Ukraine.

In the knowl­edge that there were still very con­sid­er­able needs for funds and for vac­cines against COVID-19 in 2022, Lux­em­bourg strength­ened its sup­port for com­bat­ing the pan­dem­ic. It increased its finan­cial sup­port to COV­AX, the vac­cine work­ing axis, led by Gavi, with a finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion of EUR1 mil­lion to its mar­ket com­mit­ment instru­ment at the COV­AX Advance Mar­ket Com­mit­ment Sum­mit in April 2022. The COV­AX mech­a­nism includes the COV­AX Facil­i­ty, as well as the COV­AX advance mar­ket com­mit­ment financ­ing instru­ment. This is enabling 92 low- and mid­dle-income economies to be sup­plied with donor-fund­ed dos­es of vac­cine. As in 2021, Lux­em­bourg donat­ed COVID-19 vac­cines through the COV­AX mech­a­nism as part of Team Europe. 350400 dos­es of vac­cine were deliv­ered to Egypt, Niger and Sudan. At the end of Decem­ber 2022, Lux­em­bourg also made avail­able 103680 dos­es of Pfiz­er vac­cine, which will be deliv­ered via the 
COV­AX mech­a­nism to a ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­try in 2023.

The year 2022 saw the sev­enth replen­ish­ment of the Glob­al Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuber­cu­lo­sis and Malar­ia (“the Glob­al Fund”), whose resource mobil­i­sa­tion con­fer­ence was co-organ­ised in Sep­tem­ber 2022 by the Unit­ed States in New York. In order to stem the epi­demics of these three dis­eases by 2030, the Glob­al Fund advo­cat­ed an increase in finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions from its donors by 30% com­pared to the sixth Replen­ish­ment. Lux­em­bourg was able to respond to this request for sup­port. Dur­ing the vis­it by Glob­al Fund Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Peter Sands to Lux­em­bourg on 31 May 2022, Franz Fay­ot announced a pledge of EUR11.7 mil­lion. In order to com­pen­sate for the lack of finan­cial resources mobilised by the Glob­al Fund at the con­fer­ence in Sep­tem­ber 2022, Lux­em­bourg decid­ed to increase its finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion to EUR3 mil­lion, bring­ing its total finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion for the 2023 – 2025 peri­od to EUR14.7 mil­lion. It should also be not­ed that Lux­em­bourg com­mit­ted to being an alter­nate mem­ber with­in its ​“Point 7” con­stituen­cy in 2021, before assum­ing the role of full mem­ber in the sum­mer of 2023.

The Joint Unit­ed Nations Pro­gramme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), a long-stand­ing part­ner of the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion, has found that the fight against HIV/AIDS is going back­wards rather than for­wards, due in part to inequal­i­ties in access to health care and crim­i­nal laws on HIV. On the occa­sion of the glob­al Zero Dis­crim­i­na­tion Day, Franz Fay­ot spoke at an event named ​“Remove laws that harm, cre­ate laws that empow­er”. Fol­low­ing the event, Lux­em­bourg was the first Mem­ber State of the Euro­pean Union to join the Glob­al Part­ner­ship for Action to Elim­i­nate all Forms of HIV-Relat­ed Stig­ma and Dis­crim­i­na­tion. This plat­form, host­ed by UNAIDS, aims to achieve the 10−10−10 tar­gets of the UNAIDS Glob­al Strat­e­gy which call for the elim­i­na­tion of soci­etal and legal bar­ri­ers, includ­ing stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion against key pop­u­la­tions and peo­ple liv­ing with HIV. Luxembourg’s mem­ber­ship of the Glob­al Part­ner­ship helps sup­port Mr Angel’s com­mit­ment as a spokesper­son for the pro­mo­tion of the UNAIDS objec­tives as part of his new man­date of ​“UNAIDS Red Rib­bon Leader for the 10−10−10 Social Enabler Targets”.

Dur­ing his first vis­it to Lux­em­bourg, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghe­breye­sus, Direc­tor-Gen­er­al of the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO), met Min­is­ters Franz Fay­ot and Paulette Lenert for a joint dis­cus­sion on 3 Octo­ber 2022. They debat­ed many glob­al health top­ics, includ­ing insti­tu­tion­al reform of the WHO and the need to improve glob­al health archi­tec­ture, such as the nego­ti­a­tion of a treaty on pan­dem­ic pre­ven­tion, pre­pared­ness and response and the revi­sion of the inter­na­tion­al health reg­u­la­tions through tar­get­ed amendments.

The WHO plays a key role in ensur­ing uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age, enabling equi­table and afford­able access to high-qual­i­ty care for all, which is one of Luxembourg’s pri­or­i­ties. Accord­ing to the 2021 glob­al mon­i­tor­ing report on uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age, about half the world’s pop­u­la­tion still does not have access to essen­tial health ser­vices. Lux­em­bourg has renewed its sup­port for the Uni­ver­sal Health Cov­er­age Part­ner­ship for a fourth phase from 2022 to 2024, with a con­tri­bu­tion of EUR8.8 mil­lion, and has announced its finan­cial sup­port to the UHC2030 plat­form, con­tribut­ing EUR300000. UHC2030 devel­ops glob­al advo­ca­cy to pro­mote the strength­en­ing of health sys­tems and to achieve uni­ver­sal health coverage.

The erad­i­ca­tion of poliomyelitis has also been a pri­or­i­ty for the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion for many years, espe­cial­ly with new cas­es of infec­tion being seen in 2022. In 2022, Lux­em­bourg, rep­re­sent­ed by its per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Gene­va, co-host­ed the Polio Part­ners Group (PPG) of the Glob­al Polio Erad­i­ca­tion Ini­tia­tive (GPEI), and increased its finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion by EUR200000, and then by EUR300000 at the resources mobil­i­sa­tion con­fer­ence organ­ised as part of the World Health Sum­mit in Berlin in Octo­ber 2022.

Lux­em­bourg renewed its finan­cial sup­port for the project to train French-speak­ing health researchers in sub-Saha­ran Africa in the spe­cial pro­gramme focused on research and train­ing on trop­i­cal dis­eases from 2022 to 2024, with a bud­get of EUR1 236301.

The Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion renewed its sup­port for the sixth phase of the ​“Micro­bi­ol­o­gy for Devel­op­ment” project led by the Lux­em­bourg Insti­tute of Health (LIH). It aims to con­tribute to capac­i­ty-build­ing in infec­tious dis­ease research lab­o­ra­to­ries and to the sci­en­tif­ic train­ing of infec­tious dis­ease researchers in devel­op­ing countries.

Final­ly, to con­tribute to efforts to pre­pare for and respond to pan­demics, Lux­em­bourg has con­clud­ed a part­ner­ship agree­ment with CEPI (Coali­tion for Epi­dem­ic Pre­pared­ness Inno­va­tions) for the 2022 – 2026 peri­od. CEPI is invest­ing in the devel­op­ment of vac­cines to pre­vent future epi­demics and pan­demics, and aims, among oth­er things, to pre­pare the world to respond to the next ​“dis­ease X” by devel­op­ing a new vac­cine in less than 100 days.

In par­al­lel with sub­jects relat­ing to glob­al health, mul­ti­lat­er­al coop­er­a­tion is engaged in the field of inno­va­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the area of space activ­i­ties. In Decem­ber 2022, Franz Fay­ot par­tic­i­pat­ed online in the tech­ni­cal assis­tance mis­sion for African States organ­ised as part of the ​“Space Law for New Space Actors” project imple­ment­ed by the Unit­ed Nations Office for Out­er Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and fund­ed by Lux­em­bourg. In his pre-record­ed open­ing speech, the min­is­ter high­light­ed how impor­tant it was for the prin­ci­ple of leav­ing no one behind to apply to the space sec­tor too, and the oppor­tu­ni­ties for address­ing major glob­al chal­lenges with the help of space tech­nolo­gies and appli­ca­tions. The event was main­ly an oppor­tu­ni­ty to fol­low up on the first tech­ni­cal assis­tance mis­sion for African States organ­ised online in Decem­ber 2020 and to dis­cuss the prin­ci­ples of inter­na­tion­al space law.

In ear­ly April 2022, Min­is­ter Fay­ot trav­elled to Vien­na for a work­ing meet­ing with Gerd Müller, the new Direc­tor Gen­er­al of the Unit­ed Nations Indus­tri­al Devel­op­ment Orga­ni­za­tion (UNIDO). The meet­ing focused on the pri­or­i­ties of Mr Müller’s man­date and the pos­si­bil­i­ties for strength­en­ing the part­ner­ship between Lux­em­bourg and UNIDO.

As the Pales­tin­ian refugee ques­tion is a pri­or­i­ty for the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in these uncer­tain times, Lux­em­bourg remains a reli­able part­ner of the Unit­ed Nations Relief and Works Agency for Pales­tine Refugees (UNR­WA), which it con­tin­ues to sup­port through its health pro­gramme and its gen­er­al bud­get. Dur­ing a vis­it to the Occu­pied Pales­tin­ian Ter­ri­to­ries (OPT) in Sep­tem­ber 2022, Franz Fay­ot had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it the Aida refugee camp in Beth­le­hem, where he gained an overview of the work of UNR­WA, whose ser­vices include edu­ca­tion, health care, relief work and social services.

Final­ly, the pro­mo­tion and defence of human rights is a cross-cut­ting pri­or­i­ty for the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion. In view of the con­tin­u­ing wor­ry­ing sit­u­a­tion regard­ing human rights and good gov­er­nance in Myan­mar, Lux­em­bourg has grant­ed an addi­tion­al con­tri­bu­tion of EUR750000 to the Office of the High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Myan­mar. Lux­em­bourg has also con­tributed EUR750000 to OHCHR activ­i­ties in Rwan­da to inte­grate human rights into sus­tain­able devel­op­ment work and com­bat­ing pover­ty and inequal­i­ty, and to strength­en the rule of law and account­abil­i­ty for human rights vio­la­tions in Rwanda.