Luxembourg's development cooperation - Annual report 2013

The European Union – i.e. the Member States and the EU institutions – is by far the most important contributor of development assistance in the world. The EU finances almost 60% of assistance granted. In the EU, development cooperation and humanitarian assistance policies are decided and implemented in parallel at EU and national levels. In order to coordinate these policies, the EU Ministers responsible for development cooperation meet at the Foreign Affairs Councils (FAC / Development) twice formally and once or twice informally every year. Luxembourg also participates actively in formal ministerial meetings which adopt Council conclusions on development issues.Among the discussions in 2013 at the EU FAC on development policy, those on policy coherence for development were particularly important. Moreover, Luxembourg supported a proposal to address this issue from a different perspective at each FAC. Luxembourg participated in the European Development Fund, one of the EU’s first development instruments established by the Lomé Convention for the ACP countries (now a group of 79 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific), since its creation at the end of the 1950s. Although, at the European Parliament’s request, a heading has been reserved for the Fund in the EU budget since 1993, the EDF is still not part of the general EU budget. It is financed by the EU Member States based on specific contribution keys, is subject to its own financial rules and managed by a specific committee. On average, each EDF is concluded for a period of five years. The 11th EDF was negotiated in 2013 and will begin on 1 January 2014. For the 10th EDF from 2008-2013, Luxembourg’s contribution amounted to 0.27% of the funds allocated by the EU to the ACP and PTOM countries. Luxembourg’s contribution was set at 0.25509% for the seven year period of the 11th EDF, which is a total amount of 77 817 755 euros. The slight percentage reduction compared to the 10th EDF can be partly explained by a gradual alignment of the EDF contribution keys with those of the general budget and partly by Croatia’s accession to the European Union on July 2013.  Besides, the EU has a coordinating role in cooperation affairs. Its aim is to align Member States’ approaches more closely with each other or at least to make them more complimentary. Thus the EU has started to organise joint programming in partner countries where a number of Member States are active in development affairs (notably in Laos). In 2013, this exercise began in some forty countries. Luxembourg development cooperation supports this mechanism and actively participates in it in partner countries which subscribe to it. Programming is based on an EU joint analysis of the situation in the country and is closely linked with the national development strategies of the partner country in question. It makes the aid of the EU and its Member States more consistent and effective

Luxembourg development cooperation also contributed in 2013 to the European Commission’s initiative ”Children of Peace”. This initiative is rooted in the Nobel Peace Prize which the EU was awarded in 2012. Accepting the prize, the European Council, the Commission and the Parliament decided to dedicate it to the education of children in conflict zones. As the initiative has been successful from the start, the European Commission decided to pursue it and encouraged the Member States to join. Luxembourg was the first Member State to respond to this call by the Commission.

In 2013, as in previous years, Luxembourg participated in the EU’s PEGASE mechanism, which was launched in 2008 and contributes to the payment of salaries and pensions of the Palestinian Authority’s (active and retired) civil servants in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This support is intended to contribute to the well-being of the Palestinian population and, as part of a commitment to a two-state solution, to the strengthening of the Palestinian Authority’s institutions.