Introduction

The activ­i­ties of non-gov­ern­men­tal devel­op­ment organ­i­sa­tions (NGDOs) remain essen­tial for Luxembourg’s devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion. In 2022, 25 mul­ti­an­nu­al frame­work devel­op­ment agree­ments were fund­ed and 27 devel­op­ment projects were accept­ed. For aware­ness-rais­ing and devel­op­ment edu­ca­tion in Lux­em­bourg, 15 mul­ti­an­nu­al frame­work agree­ments (2022−2024) were signed in 2022 and 8 annu­al projects received sub­si­dies from the Min­istry of For­eign and Euro­pean Affairs (MFA). Two man­dates, Rethink your Clothes and the Third World Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre (CITIM), were renewed (2022−2024) for pro­grammes ful­ly fund­ed by the MFA.

Faced with the sig­nif­i­cant increase in the actu­al admin­is­tra­tive costs incurred by the NGDOs, the min­istry decid­ed to raise the ceil­ing for admin­is­tra­tive costs from 14% to 15% in order to help the NGDOs to absorb costs linked to per­son­nel, oper­a­tions and their premises.

Con­cerned by the infla­tion­ary surge in devel­op­ing coun­tries in 2022, the min­istry has already indi­cat­ed to NGDOs that it will ensure that funds are real­lo­cat­ed so that they can adapt their activ­i­ties on the ground to the infla­tion­ary environment.

Fol­low­ing some cas­es linked to sex­u­al exploita­tion and abuse and sex­u­al harass­ment (SEAH) that have occurred in the devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion and human­i­tar­i­an action sec­tor inter­na­tion­al­ly, the MFA and the NGDOs’ Cir­cle decid­ed to pro­duce a char­ter to pre­vent and respond to SEAH. Since 2021, any asso­ci­a­tion or foun­da­tion wish­ing to obtain min­is­te­r­i­al approval or any NGDO wish­ing to renew its min­is­te­r­i­al approval must have signed the SEAH Char­ter. Dur­ing 2022, the MFA, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Cir­cle, worked to draft a vir­tu­al self-direct­ed train­ing guide for approved NGDOs to bet­ter sup­port them in this area.

Since 2020, as part of devel­op­ment projects and pro­grammes, a secu­ri­ty bud­get head­ing has been cre­at­ed to finance not only secu­ri­ty train­ing for local part­ners and vol­un­teers but also non-lethal equip­ment, eli­gi­ble as offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance (ODA), required in order to ensure the safe­ty of local part­ners and vol­un­teers on the ground. In addi­tion, the min­istry co-financed secu­ri­ty train­ing in Lux­em­bourg for accred­it­ed NGDOs, organ­ised by the Cir­cle in 2021 and 2022.