Gender

To effec­tive­ly strength­en gen­der equal­i­ty, the inter­sec­tion between gen­der and oth­er fac­tors, such as age, eth­nic­i­ty, socio-eco­nom­ic sta­tus or any dis­abil­i­ty, must be tak­en into account. It is also vital to address dis­crim­i­na­to­ry struc­tures, and gen­der-based social norms and stereo­types that are the root caus­es of gen­der inequal­i­ty. Action by women in the pub­lic and pri­vate spheres of life is crucial.

Since the com­mit­ments made at the Gen­er­a­tion Equal­i­ty Forum in July 2021, Lux­em­bourg has been able to make tan­gi­ble progress. In addi­tion to tak­ing posi­tions in inter­na­tion­al and Euro­pean fora, Lux­em­bourg has imple­ment­ed con­crete mea­sures: after revis­ing its gen­der strat­e­gy, mak­ing it res­olute­ly pro­gres­sive and tai­lored to meet cur­rent glob­al chal­lenges, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has devel­oped sev­er­al oper­a­tional tools and sec­tor-spe­cif­ic sheets to ensure gen­der is inte­grat­ed and actu­al­ly tak­en into account in the man­age­ment of the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s pro­gram­ming and project cycle. More specif­i­cal­ly, the var­i­ous actors with­in Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion are being equipped with the appro­pri­ate tools to facil­i­tate the imple­men­ta­tion of dif­fer­ent devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion and human­i­tar­i­an activities.

Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is also con­tin­u­ing its work on devel­op­ing actions to pre­vent and com­bat all forms of sex­u­al and gen­der-based vio­lence with all its part­ners, includ­ing Luxembourg’s NGDOs, through the improve­ment of their inter­nal pro­ce­dures for the pre­ven­tion, detec­tion, treat­ment of and pro­tec­tion against all types of sex­u­al and gen­der-based violence.

With its mul­ti­lat­er­al part­ners, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is con­tin­u­ing a num­ber of part­ner­ships that work direct­ly on the advance­ment of gen­der equal­i­ty and the empow­er­ment of women. In 2023, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion con­tin­ued to pro­vide finan­cial sup­port to the core bud­gets of UN Women and the Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Fund (UNF­PA), as well as to the gen­der funds of UNICEF and the Unit­ed Nations Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP).

Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion also sup­ports a large num­ber of ini­tia­tives that bring togeth­er sev­er­al UN part­ners in order to strength­en women’s rights in dif­fer­ent sec­tors. Thus, the Edu­ca­tion Plus ini­tia­tive, imple­ment­ed by UNAIDS, and co-led by UNF­PA, UN Women, UNESCO, UNDP and UNICEF, aims to mobilise high-lev­el polit­i­cal com­mit­ment to ensure access to sec­ondary edu­ca­tion for girls, includ­ing edu­ca­tion on health and on sex­u­al and repro­duc­tive rights. Thus, at the end of 2023, 15 African coun­tries (Benin, Cameroon, Eswa­ti­ni, Gabon, Gam­bia, Lesotho, Malawi, Sier­ra Leone, South Africa, Ugan­da, Sene­gal, Tan­za­nia, Kenya, Botswana and Zam­bia) made polit­i­cal com­mit­ments to join the Edu­ca­tion Plus ini­tia­tive. In addi­tion, sup­port for the UNICEF/UNFPA joint pro­gramme for the erad­i­ca­tion of female gen­i­tal muti­la­tion con­tin­ues and, since 2022, Lux­em­bourg has fund­ed the UN Women sus­tain­able finance pro­gramme, which aims to increase the vol­ume and qual­i­ty of fund­ing for gen­der equality.

Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion also finances inter­ven­tions, projects and pro­grammes at region­al lev­el and at the lev­el of spe­cif­ic coun­tries. In 2023, six new gen­der equal­i­ty projects were fund­ed by Lux­em­bourg, four with UNF­PA as lead part­ner and two with UN Women.

For exam­ple, in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, with Luxembourg’s sup­port UNF­PA has been able to launch a new region­al pro­gramme to reduce the num­ber of preg­nan­cies among teenage girls in Afro-descen­dant, Cre­ole, Gar­i­fu­na and Miski­to com­mu­ni­ties in the coastal region of Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean. Luxembourg’s con­tri­bu­tion totals EUR6 mil­lion for the 2023 – 2026 period.

In Brazil, Lux­em­bourg has decid­ed to con­tin­ue its sup­port for the joint work by UN Women, the Unit­ed Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and UNF­PA to com­bat the inequal­i­ties and human rights vio­la­tions faced by women and girls, whether Venezue­lan, migrants, asy­lum seek­ers or refugees. Luxembourg’s con­tri­bu­tion of EUR1.5 mil­lion to the third phase of this pro­gramme (2023−2025) will enable the three agen­cies to work togeth­er on incor­po­rat­ing human rights and gen­der equal­i­ty into the new gen­er­a­tion of pub­lic poli­cies on migra­tion, asy­lum and statelessness.

In Benin, Lux­em­bourg is sup­port­ing a UNF­PA project to train approx­i­mate­ly 740,000 girls and boys in sex­u­al and repro­duc­tive health, eco­nom­ic empow­er­ment, lead­er­ship and par­tic­i­pa­tion and to sup­port the asso­ci­at­ed insti­tu­tion­al ecosys­tem. With a bud­get of EUR4.75 mil­lion for the 2023 – 2025 peri­od, the project hopes to encour­age young peo­ple to become pow­er­ful agents of change and trans­for­ma­tion in their communities.

With a con­tri­bu­tion of EUR500,000 for the 2023 to 2025 peri­od, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is also work­ing along­side UN Women in Ethiopia to sup­port the Ethiopi­an Gov­ern­ment to pro­duce and adopt a nation­al action plan on women, peace and secu­ri­ty for the imple­men­ta­tion of UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion 1325 (2000).

In Mali, Lux­em­bourg is con­tribut­ing EUR4.7 mil­lion to the train­ing of 150 mid­wives as part of a project imple­ment­ed by UNF­PA (2023−2024). The project’s expect­ed out­comes are to assist 80,000 deliv­er­ies, to improve the knowl­edge of 300,000 women in health and rights, and to pro­vide holis­tic care for 1,000 cas­es of rape and GBV (gen­der-based violence).

In Burk­i­na Faso, UNF­PA launched a new project to strength­en the resilience and con­tri­bu­tion of women and young peo­ple to the effects of cli­mate change. Lux­em­bourg is sup­port­ing this project with a con­tri­bu­tion of EUR5 mil­lion for the 2023 to 2025 peri­od. The project focus­es on three areas: capac­i­ty build­ing, improv­ing the finan­cial inclu­sion and socio-eco­nom­ic inte­gra­tion of women and young peo­ple, and strength­en­ing women’s eco­nom­ic empow­er­ment in order to pre­vent GBV.

The West Africa region has some of the low­est health indi­ca­tors in the world, par­tic­u­lar­ly for sex­u­al and repro­duc­tive health and rights (SRHR). For exam­ple, a new region­al pro­gramme with a bud­get of EUR1.5 mil­lion was launched in 2023 with the Inter­na­tion­al Planned Par­ent­hood Fed­er­a­tion (IPPF). This project aims to sup­port IPPF’s nation­al part­ners in the West Africa region, specif­i­cal­ly in Sene­gal, Burk­i­na Faso, Cabo Verde and Benin, to defend and strength­en the SRHR of the poor­est and most dis­ad­van­taged pop­u­la­tions, who are often under­served and deprived of care.

In addi­tion, in Sene­gal, Lux­em­bourg is con­tribut­ing EUR500,000 for the 2022 – 2025 peri­od to fund the VIMOS project, which is imple­ment­ed by civ­il soci­ety actors and focus­es on pre­vent­ing sex­u­al vio­lence and female gen­i­tal muti­la­tion among young women, as well as on the devel­op­ment and sup­port of care for victims.

Fur­ther­more, in the Sahel, Lux­em­bourg is con­tin­u­ing its sup­port for gen­der equal­i­ty through sev­er­al ded­i­cat­ed pro­grammes (e.g. the UNF­PA Illim­in project on edu­ca­tion and sex­u­al and repro­duc­tive health in Niger; the World Food Programme’s project enti­tled ​“Break­ing Bar­ri­ers for Girls’ Edu­ca­tion” in Niger; and the FEVEIMPULSE sub-region­al project on health and sex­u­al and repro­duc­tive aware­ness, run by ENDA San­té), as well as in a cross-cut­ting man­ner through all its bilat­er­al commitments.

In Afghanistan, the Thrive project run by Ger­man NGOKIRON Open High­er Edu­ca­tion pro­vides Afghan girls and women with access to online cours­es and mar­ket­ing train­ing, as well as Eng­lish lan­guage cours­es, so that they can set up a small busi­ness and have a cer­tain degree of finan­cial inde­pen­dence. Since Novem­ber 2023, 50 women have tak­en part in this project.