REGIONAL AFRICA/SAHEL

In the field of health, Lux­em­bourg has strength­ened its com­mit­ment to com­bat­ing com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases. The Sene­galese NGO ENDA San­té, in part­ner­ship with the Lux­em­bourg Insti­tute of Health, the Cen­tre Hos­pi­tal­ier de Lux­em­bourg, Luxembourg’s Lab­o­ra­toire Nation­al de San­té and the Lux­em­bour­gish NGO Stop AIDS Now/​Access, is con­tin­u­ing to improve access to diag­nos­tics and treat­ment for those infect­ed with sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted dis­eases in Sene­gal and Guinea-Bis­sau. As part of the fight against HIV/AIDS, the FEVE IMPULSE project, also imple­ment­ed by ENDA San­té, com­plet­ed its sec­ond year of oper­a­tion in 2023.

Lux­em­bourg has main­tained its com­mit­ments to the part­ner­ship for uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age imple­ment­ed by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO). The pro­gramme aims to strength­en the capac­i­ty of more than 125 ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­tries to devel­op and imple­ment robust and com­pre­hen­sive health poli­cies, strate­gies and plans that pro­mote uni­ver­sal health care to ensure access to high-qual­i­ty and afford­able care for all. Tech­ni­cal sup­port from Lux­em­bourg for this pro­gramme is pro­vid­ed by experts deployed in WHO offices in Sene­gal, Burk­i­na Faso, Mali, Niger, Cabo Verde and Laos.

In addi­tion, Lux­em­bourg sup­ports the project ​“Strength­en­ing Capac­i­ty on Imple­men­ta­tion Research in French-speak­ing West Africa”, part of the WHO’s Spe­cial Pro­gramme for Research and Train­ing in Trop­i­cal Dis­eases (Trop­i­cal dis­ease research, TDR). In order to meet the high demand for pub­lic health train­ing in French-speak­ing sub-Saha­ran Africa, the Cheikh Anta Diop Uni­ver­si­ty of Dakar was select­ed as part of the TDR’s ​“Post­doc­tor­al Train­ing Pro­gramme”. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence, Tech­niques and Tech­nol­o­gy of Bamako (UST­TB) in Mali is also asso­ci­at­ed with the project.

In terms of food safe­ty, sup­port from Lux­em­bourg via the Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Orga­ni­za­tion (FAO) is boost­ing the response capac­i­ty of the bod­ies in charge of street food health sur­veil­lance while improv­ing the qual­i­ty of food in Sene­gal, in Burk­i­na Faso and, since 2023, in Mali (2022 – 2025; EUR 1.9 million).

In 2023, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion also tar­get­ed the imple­men­ta­tion of human rights pro­tec­tion projects, with a focus on human rights defend­ers. A project imple­ment­ed by the NGO Front Line Defend­ers start­ed in 2023 (2023 – 2025; EUR 1.1 mil­lion), with the aim of pro­vid­ing prac­ti­cal solu­tions to human rights defend­ers at risk in Niger, Mali, Burk­i­na Faso, Sene­gal, Rwan­da and Benin through indi­vid­ual pro­tec­tion or relo­ca­tion sup­port, as well as train­ing. Since 2023, the NGO Inter­na­tion­al Ser­vice for Human Rights (ISHR) has been imple­ment­ing a project (2023 – 2025; EUR 300,000) seek­ing to pro­tect human rights defend­ers, pri­mar­i­ly through leg­isla­tive work in Benin, Burk­i­na Faso, Cabo Verde, Mali, Niger and Sene­gal to strength­en the laws and sys­tems that pro­tect free­dom of expres­sion, asso­ci­a­tion and assembly.

In terms of gov­er­nance, in 2023 Lux­em­bourg joined a Team Europe Ini­tia­tive (TEI) enti­tled ​“ICT Pol­i­cy & Reg­u­la­tion — Insti­tu­tion­al Strength­en­ing” (iPRIS), which aims to sup­port a reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment that facil­i­tates elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tions and infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies to improve con­nec­tiv­i­ty for all in sub-Saha­ran Africa. The Lux­em­bourg Reg­u­la­to­ry Insti­tute (ILR) is one of the imple­ment­ing partners.

Also in the area of gov­er­nance, assis­tance of EUR 160,000 from Lux­em­bourg in 2023 enabled the House of Training/​ATTF to deliv­er train­ing in the finan­cial and bank­ing sec­tor, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Cen­tral Bank of West African States (BCEAO). Lux­em­bourg also sup­ports the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund’s (IMF) Region­al Tech­ni­cal Assis­tance Cen­tre in West Africa, which organ­is­es sem­i­nars and immer­sion ses­sions to train offi­cials from par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries in pub­lic finance and good governance.

Lux­em­bourg also main­tains a spe­cial rela­tion­ship with the Sahel office of the Inter­na­tion­al Cri­sis Group (ICG), enabling it to strength­en its analy­sis of polit­i­cal and secu­ri­ty devel­op­ments in the Sahel region (2022 – 2024; EUR 600,000).

Final­ly, Lux­em­bourg con­firmed its sub­stan­tial com­mit­ment to the devel­op­ment of the Sahel region, and in par­tic­u­lar to the Sahel Alliance, which it joined in March 2018, by mak­ing a finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion of EUR 200,000 to the organisation’s coor­di­nat­ing body for the 2024 – 2025 period.