DIGITAL FOR DEVELOPMENT (D4D)

Thus, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has strength­ened its col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Lux­em­bourg House of Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, sign­ing a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing in July 2023.

The new project, for­malised in 2023 and enti­tled ​“Infor­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­cy and Reg­u­la­tion – Insti­tu­tion­al Strength­en­ing (iPRIS)”, car­ried out by part­ners includ­ing the Lux­em­bourg Insti­tute of Reg­u­la­tion and Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion, togeth­er with the Swedish coop­er­a­tion agency and the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, is an exam­ple of using Luxembourg’s exper­tise in devel­op­ing coun­tries. iPRIS is a project that aims to improve mean­ing­ful, inclu­sive and sus­tain­able con­nec­tiv­i­ty in sub-Saha­ran Africa by strength­en­ing the capac­i­ty of nation­al reg­u­la­to­ry insti­tutes (NRIs) to imple­ment strate­gic projects.

Fur­ther­more, in 2023, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion main­tained its com­mit­ment with­in the Euro­pean Commission’s Dig­i­tal for Devel­op­ment Hub (D4D Hub), pro­mot­ing the align­ment of EU dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives to increase their impact. This strate­gic mul­ti-stake­hold­er plat­form pro­motes new inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships in the field of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion between the EU and part­ner coun­tries, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Africa. The shared aim is a human-cen­tric approach to dig­i­tal train­ing: facil­i­tat­ing mul­ti-stake­hold­er part­ner­ships, shar­ing exper­tise and encour­ag­ing invest­ments from var­i­ous Euro­pean and glob­al part­ners. In this con­text, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is active­ly con­tribut­ing to activ­i­ties with­in the Africa branch as well as to the cyber­space work­ing group, which Lux­em­bourg co-chairs togeth­er with France and the Euro­pean Commission.

In this con­text, Lux­em­bourg has also con­tin­ued its com­mit­ment with­in the African Union-Euro­pean Union (AU-EU) D4D Hub. Imple­ment­ed by five Euro­pean devel­op­ment agen­cies, includ­ing LuxDev, and with EUR8 mil­lion under Euro­pean fund­ing, this project aims to help bridge the dig­i­tal divide, includ­ing the gen­der divide, and to use dig­i­tal inno­va­tions to fos­ter sus­tain­able and inclu­sive devel­op­ment in Africa. The AU-EUD4D Hub also ben­e­fits Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s part­ner coun­tries, includ­ing Cabo Verde.

In 2023 Lux­em­bourg con­tin­ued its com­mit­ment to the Glob­al Forum on Cyber Exper­tise (GFCE), which it joined in 2021. The pur­pose of this mul­ti-stake­hold­er plat­form is to build capac­i­ty and exper­tise in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, by facil­i­tat­ing inter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion. The Forum has more than 115 mem­bers and part­ners, includ­ing gov­ern­ments, inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions and oth­er civ­il soci­ety and pri­vate-sec­tor oper­a­tors, as well as the aca­d­e­m­ic com­mu­ni­ty. Lux­em­bourg also joined the EU Cyber­Net net­work in May 2023. EU Cyber­Net is estab­lish­ing a net­work and a learn­ing plat­form to strength­en cyber­se­cu­ri­ty capa­bil­i­ties glob­al­ly. EU Cyber­Net also con­tributes to the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of EU poli­cies toward part­ner coun­tries in the area of cybersecurity.

Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s D4D projects focus on mod­ernising pub­lic admin­is­tra­tions, devel­op­ing dig­i­tal finan­cial ser­vices, strength­en­ing core com­pe­tences and build­ing capac­i­ty in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty. The Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross (ICRC) inau­gu­rat­ed its del­e­ga­tion for cyber­space in Novem­ber 2022, and its work con­sti­tutes an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion in the field of cybersecurity.

Efforts to main­stream these areas in a cross-cut­ting man­ner in bilat­er­al and mul­ti­lat­er­al pro­grammes as well as in human­i­tar­i­an action will con­tin­ue beyond 2023.