Introduction

About 30% of the offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance bud­get per year is ear­marked to sup­port the pro­grammes and projects of mul­ti­lat­er­al organ­i­sa­tions in order to con­tribute to the imple­men­ta­tion of the 17 Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) set out in the Unit­ed Nations Agen­da 2030.

Strate­gic part­ner­ship agree­ments link Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion with the largest mul­ti-stake­hold­er organ­i­sa­tions, which are main­ly based in New York and Gene­va. Annu­al con­sul­ta­tions are held to fol­low up on these var­i­ous part­ner­ships and to main­tain a dia­logue on their pri­or­i­ties and strate­gies, activ­i­ties and results in the field. In 2023, Lux­em­bourg wel­comed UNICEF, UN Women, the Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Fund (UNF­PA) and the Unit­ed Nations Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) to Lux­em­bourg and met with the Unit­ed Nations Cap­i­tal Devel­op­ment Fund (UNCDF) in New York, as well as the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO), UNAIDS and the Inter­na­tion­al Labour Orga­ni­za­tion (ILO) in Geneva.

In March 2023, Lux­em­bourg par­tic­i­pat­ed in the fifth Con­fer­ence on the Least Devel­oped Coun­tries (LDCs) in Doha, Qatar, high­light­ing its long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to the most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple in the inter­na­tion­al community.

Through­out the year, high-lev­el exchanges took place with var­i­ous agen­cies. In July 2023, Min­is­ter Franz Fay­ot trav­elled to Rome for a work­ing vis­it, where he was able to dis­cuss the efforts required to com­bat hunger with Qu Dongyu, Direc­tor-Gen­er­al of the Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Orga­ni­za­tion (FAO), Alvaro Lario, IFAD Pres­i­dent, and Cindy McCain, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Food Pro­gramme (WFP). Min­is­ter Franz Fay­ot also had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the ​“UN Food Sys­tems Stock­tak­ing Moment”, under­lin­ing the cen­tral role that food sys­tem trans­for­ma­tions have in over­all progress on the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals, and under­lin­ing Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s com­mit­ments in this area.

In Sep­tem­ber 2023, the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals Sum­mit was also held. This takes place every four years at the lev­el of Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment. Held mid-way through the imple­men­ta­tion of the 2030 Agen­da, the 2023 Sum­mit was an oppor­tu­ni­ty both to take stock of the imple­men­ta­tion of the SDGs and to begin a new phase of accel­er­at­ing their achieve­ment. Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion was rep­re­sent­ed by Min­is­ter Franz Fay­ot, who attend­ed the summit’s open­ing ses­sion and deliv­ered a speech at the Lead­ers’ Dia­logue 3, on the role of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, inno­va­tion and data. In his speech, he called for the intro­duc­tion of new indi­ca­tors to mea­sure pros­per­i­ty and growth, stress­ing the impor­tance of includ­ing social, envi­ron­men­tal and sub­jec­tive well-being targets.

While at the SDG Sum­mit, Min­is­ter Franz Fay­ot met with Tedros Adhanom Ghe­breye­sus, Direc­tor-Gen­er­al of the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO). At the meet­ing an addi­tion­al finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion of EUR1 mil­lion for 2023 was announced, and an amend­ment to the Strate­gic Frame­work Agree­ment was signed, extend­ing its imple­men­ta­tion from 1 Jan­u­ary 2024 to 31 Decem­ber 2024, with the same annu­al finan­cial amount and the same finan­cial allo­ca­tions (EUR7.15 mil­lion per year). The amend­ment makes it pos­si­ble to align the next part­ner­ship agree­ment (2025−2028) with the WHO to the WHO’s 14^th Gen­er­al Pro­gramme of Work (2025−2028). The programme’s pri­or­i­ties and invest­ment needs will be nego­ti­at­ed in 2024 to ensure sus­tain­able fund­ing of the WHO bud­get. In the frame­work of its part­ner­ship with the WHO, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has main­tained its com­mit­ments to the part­ner­ship on uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age, and has sup­port­ed the WHO’s spe­cial pro­gramme to com­bat trop­i­cal dis­eases linked to pover­ty (Trop­i­cal Dis­ease Research), and the Glob­al Polio Erad­i­ca­tion Ini­tia­tive (GPEI), whose term as co-chair of the Polio Part­ners Group (PPG), car­ried out by Luxembourg’s ambas­sador in Gene­va, end­ed in Decem­ber 2023.

Fol­low­ing the swear­ing-in of the new gov­ern­ment on 17 Novem­ber 2023 and as part of his first work­ing vis­it to Gene­va in Decem­ber 2023, Min­is­ter Xavier Bet­tel exchanged views with Tedros Adhanom Ghe­breye­sus, Direc­tor-Gen­er­al of the WHO. Dur­ing this meet­ing, the Min­is­ter point­ed to the impor­tance attached by Lux­em­bourg to the nego­ti­a­tions on the inter­na­tion­al agree­ment on pan­dem­ic pre­ven­tion, pre­pared­ness and response, through Euro­pean par­tic­i­pa­tion. Min­is­ter Xavier Bet­tel also met with Win­nie Byany­i­ma, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Joint Unit­ed Nations Pro­gramme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Dur­ing their meet­ing, Min­is­ter Xavier Bet­tel reit­er­at­ed Luxembourg’s ongo­ing sup­port and under­lined the lead­ing role of UNAIDS in the response to HIV/AIDS and in com­bat­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion in sit­u­a­tions where anti-LGB­TIQ move­ments were becom­ing increas­ing­ly strong, putting peo­ple from key pop­u­la­tions par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to HIV at an increased risk of hav­ing their access to pre­ven­tion, test­ing and care ser­vices restricted.

In Decem­ber 2023, the fourth and final ses­sion of the con­sul­ta­tion on the 13^th replen­ish­ment of the resources of the Inter­na­tion­al Fund for Agri­cul­tur­al Devel­op­ment (IFAD) was held in Paris with the objec­tive of replen­ish­ing IFAD’s core resources to sup­port more than 100 mil­lion women, men, young peo­ple and mar­gin­alised peo­ple in rur­al areas. Stress­ing the need to invest more in rur­al pros­per­i­ty and resilience to enhance food secu­ri­ty, Lux­em­bourg pledged to con­tribute EUR4.5 mil­lion to IFAD’s core resources for the 2025 – 2027 period.

In view of the impor­tance attached to human rights, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has allo­cat­ed an addi­tion­al con­tri­bu­tion of EUR1 mil­lion to the Unit­ed Nations Vol­un­tary Fund for Tech­ni­cal Coop­er­a­tion in the Field of Human Rights. In addi­tion, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has pro­vid­ed finan­cial sup­port of EUR400,000 to the Office of the High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the Occu­pied Pales­tin­ian Ter­ri­to­ries (OPT) as well as sup­port of EUR300,000 for activ­i­ties in East Africa, to sup­port the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of human rights.

In terms of fund­ing, in accor­dance with the 2019 Unit­ed Nations fund­ing com­pact Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has under­tak­en to ear­mark at least one third of its finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions to the core (non-ear­marked) resources feed­ing into the bud­gets of the organ­i­sa­tions in the Unit­ed Nations sys­tem. This com­mit­ment ensures the pre­dictabil­i­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty of finan­cial resources avail­able to the mul­ti­lat­er­al organ­i­sa­tions, enabling them to pro­gramme devel­op­ment aid poli­cies more effi­cient­ly and sustainably.

The rest of the con­tri­bu­tions are divid­ed into the­mat­ic con­tri­bu­tions and con­tri­bu­tions to spe­cif­ic projects and pro­grammes, known as ​“mul­ti-bi”, for the most part imple­ment­ed in Luxembourg’s part­ner countries.

In 2023, new mul­ti-bi projects were con­clud­ed with the ILO in Cabo Verde and Rwan­da, with the UNDP in Ethiopia, with UNF­PA in Benin, Mali, Burk­i­na Faso and Mon­go­lia, and with UNICEF in Syr­ia, Jor­dan and Koso­vo. In addi­tion, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has decid­ed to sup­port joint ini­tia­tives, such as a pro­gramme imple­ment­ed joint­ly by UN Women, UNF­PA and UNHCR in Brazil, and a programme 
imple­ment­ed joint­ly by UNDP and UN Habi­tat in Cabo Verde.

In light of the destruc­tion on a stag­ger­ing scale caused by Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine, the mul­ti­lat­er­al coop­er­a­tion depart­ment has also renewed its com­mit­ment to Ukraine’s recov­ery through a series of new mul­ti-bi projects, which includes an FAO agri­cul­tur­al reha­bil­i­ta­tion project, a UNICEF school project for chil­dren who have fall­en behind and a con­tri­bu­tion to the Ukraine Recov­ery Fund.

Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion also works with­in in the gov­ern­ing bod­ies of mul­ti­lat­er­al devel­op­ment organ­i­sa­tions, sit­ting, for exam­ple, on their admin­is­tra­tive boards, the­mat­ic fund com­mit­tees or on project steer­ing com­mit­tees. Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is also par­tic­i­pat­ing in ongo­ing efforts to reform the inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment system.

Thus, the health, social and eco­nom­ic con­se­quences of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic have led mul­ti­lat­er­al actors to rethink the glob­al health sys­tem, in order to bet­ter take into account the inter­de­pen­den­cies of glob­al health issues with the con­se­quences of cli­mate change, the human rights sit­u­a­tion and eco­nom­ic and human­i­tar­i­an crises when for­mu­lat­ing their strate­gic ori­en­ta­tions, in order to strength­en health sys­tems and pre­pare them for future health crises.

In that con­text, the mul­ti­lat­er­al depart­ment is work­ing, for exam­ple, with mul­ti­lat­er­al organ­i­sa­tions with a pri­ma­ry man­date of glob­al health, such as the WHO, UNAIDS, Gavi, the Vac­cine Alliance, the Glob­al Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuber­cu­lo­sis and Malar­ia and the Coali­tion for Epi­dem­ic Pre­pared­ness Inno­va­tions (CEPI).

Con­tin­u­ing its long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to com­bat­ing endem­ic dis­eases, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is sit­ting for the first time on the Board of the Glob­al Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuber­cu­lo­sis and Malar­ia, from July 2023 to July 2025. The Glob­al Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuber­cu­lo­sis and Malar­ia is the world’s lead­ing provider of glob­al health grants to 126 recip­i­ent coun­tries, with more than USD60.3 bil­lion dis­bursed between 2002 and the end of June 2023 to fight these three diseases.

In addi­tion, in 2023, Lux­em­bourg pro­vid­ed 123,840 dos­es of Pfiz­er vac­cine via the COV­AX mech­a­nism, as part of the fight against COVID-19. Fol­low­ing the WHO’s announce­ment in May 2023 that the COVID-19 virus no longer con­sti­tutes an inter­na­tion­al pub­lic health emer­gency, the COV­AX mech­a­nism end­ed on 31 Decem­ber 2023. It will have deliv­ered near­ly 2 bil­lion dos­es of vac­cines to 146 economies between 2021 and 2023.

In addi­tion, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion also par­tic­i­pat­ed for the first time in the Glob­al Vac­cine Impact Con­fer­ence, halfway through the 2021 – 2025 strate­gic peri­od of Gavi, the Vac­cine Alliance, in Madrid in June 2023. The con­fer­ence brought togeth­er near­ly 300 par­tic­i­pants, includ­ing inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions, Gavi donors, the pri­vate sec­tor, pri­vate foun­da­tions and recip­i­ent coun­tries, to take stock of the state of glob­al child immu­ni­sa­tion in devel­op­ing coun­tries. espe­cial­ly after the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic deprived mil­lions of chil­dren of vac­cines and thus delayed progress in terms of immu­ni­sa­tion cov­er­age for chil­dren, expos­ing a whole gen­er­a­tion to dis­eases that can be pre­vent­ed through vaccination.

Since uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age (UHC) is a pri­or­i­ty for Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion, a con­tri­bu­tion of EUR300,000 has been allo­cat­ed to the UHC2030 plat­form, which aims to coor­di­nate glob­al advo­ca­cy to pro­mote health sys­tems strength­en­ing, in order to sup­port it in the con­text of the adop­tion of the Polit­i­cal Dec­la­ra­tion on Uni­ver­sal Health Cov­er­age by the Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly in Sep­tem­ber 2023.

Final­ly, a series of addi­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions to the core bud­gets of var­i­ous Unit­ed Nations enti­ties, includ­ing UNICEF, UNF­PA, UNAIDS, the WHO, the Glob­al Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuber­cu­lo­sis and Malar­ia and the Joint SDG Fund, were added to the con­tri­bu­tions set out in the strate­gic part­ner­ship frame­works in 2023.