Benin

In terms of bilat­er­al coop­er­a­tion, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion con­tin­ued to finance two pro­grammes via del­e­gat­ed coop­er­a­tion agree­ments. This includes the con­struc­tion and fit­ting out of agri­cul­tur­al tech­ni­cal high schools (EUR3 mil­lion, with the Agence Française de Développe­ment (AFD)) and the pro­gramme ​“Sup­port for the man­age­ment of the Mono delta bios­phere reserve and the devel­op­ment of the Bouche du Roy marine pro­tect­ed area” (EUR3 mil­lion, with the Bel­gian devel­op­ment agency Enabel), which is a pro­gramme led by the Del­e­ga­tion of the Euro­pean Union to Coto­nou. In 2023, LuxDev (Lux-Devel­op­ment) began for­mu­lat­ing four new projects that it will imple­ment in part­ner­ship with nation­al author­i­ties and oth­er organ­i­sa­tions with spe­cif­ic expertise:

School of tourism, hos­pi­tal­i­ty and cater­ing pro­fes­sions (2023−2026; EUR17 mil­lion), in part­ner­ship with the Lux­em­bourg School of Tourism and Hos­pi­tal­i­ty (Diekirch) and the Lau­sanne School of Hos­pi­tal­i­ty, the Swiss NGO Hel­ve­tas and the NGOEcoBénin;

Agri­cul­tur­al and rur­al voca­tion­al train­ing (2024−2027; EUR10.2 mil­lion), in part­ner­ship with the Bel­gian agency Enabel and the Glob­al Green Growth Institute;

Inclu­sive and inno­v­a­tive finance (2024−2027; EUR10 mil­lion), in part­ner­ship with the Lux­em­bour­gish NGOAppui au développe­ment autonome (ADA) and the Ger­man agency Gesellschaft für inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ);

Dig­i­tal and dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion (2024−2027; EUR8.5 mil­lion), in part­ner­ship with the Lux­em­bourg House of Cybersecurity.

A mul­ti­lat­er­al pro­gramme with the Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Fund (UNF­PA) in the area of health and sex edu­ca­tion (EUR4.7 mil­lion) is also in progress (2023−2025). In 2023, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion also start­ed work on iden­ti­fy­ing a form of sup­port in the field of children’s rights with the Unit­ed Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Luxembourg’s first emer­gency sup­port to Benin start­ed in 2023, in response to the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of liv­ing con­di­tions in the north of the coun­try. It was a con­tri­bu­tion of EUR157,590 to an activ­i­ty run by Hand­i­cap Inter­na­tion­al Lux­em­bourg to help improve liv­ing con­di­tions for the most vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions affect­ed by inse­cu­ri­ty and forced dis­place­ment in north­ern Benin.

Six Lux­em­bour­gish NGDOs are active in Benin, four of which oper­ate under frame­work agree­ments (Fon­da­tion Raoul Follereau, Phar­ma­ciens sans Fron­tières, SOS Faim and SOS Vil­lages d’Enfants Monde) and two in the form of co-financed projects (Aide au Bénin, Iles de Paix Lux­em­bourg).