Luxembourg's development cooperation - Annual report 2015

In 2015, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs had a total available budget of 37 million euros earmarked for humanitarian interventions. The entire budget was spent on supporting humanitarian interventions in various countries and in the three phases of a humanitarian crisis in line with the three pillars set out in Luxembourg’s humanitarian action strategy: emergency, transition and prevention. If we add to this the contributions for humanitarian purposes included in the multilateral budget line, the total amount allocated to humanitarian interventions in 2015 amounted to 40 295 000 euros.

Ahead of the World Humanitarian Summit, which will take place in Istanbul from 23 to 24 May 2016, the Ministry participated in February 2015 in the regional consultations for Europe and Budapest as well as in the general consultations held in October in Geneva. Furthermore, the World Humanitarian Summit working group created in 2014 in Luxembourg, which includes the Ministry’s humanitarian department, its main humanitarian partners based in Luxembourg and the University of Luxembourg, met regularly in 2015 in order to stimulate a national debate into the main challenges and strategies to be adopted with regard to humanitarian action. These consultations led to the drawing up of a joint Luxembourgish position regarding the protection aspect of the Summit. This document was presented in September at the meeting of the Working Party of the Humanitarian Aid and Food Aid group (COHAFA) of the Council of the European Union and was also sent to the Secretariat of the World Humanitarian Summit in New York.

As part of the Ministry’s efforts to improve the quality and effectiveness of its action, an initial evaluation of humanitarian projects was launched at the end of 2014, the aim of which is to evaluate the activities focusing on reducing the risk of catastrophes in Laos, activities financed by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and implemented by three Luxembourg NGOs, i.e. CARE in Luxembourg, Fondation Caritas Luxembourg and the Luxembourg Red Cross between 2011 and 2014. At the end of August 2015, the evaluation report was sent to the members of the steering committee. A workshop in November enabled the sharing of experience and fed into a discussion on priority themes for the Luxembourgish actors working in Laos in the sector dealing with reducing risks linked to catastrophes.

At the end of November, the Ministry launched an initial call for proposals to enable Luxembourgish NGOs which had already implemented a humanitarian project in Mali and/or Niger in the previous three years to submit a request for funding for a humanitarian project in either country of a maximum of 180 000 euros from the humanitarian budget for 2015.

Response to the humanitarian crisis in the western Balkans

At the informal European Council of 23 September 2015, Luxembourg announced that it would be allocating an additional 1 million euros for the Syrian crisis and the migrant and refugee crisis in the western Balkans. In order to meet the humanitarian needs of migrants and refugees in transit towards and inside Europe, the Ministry contributed to four emergency appeals made by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in September 2015 in the context of the population movements in Hungary, Serbia, Macedonia and Greece. The Luxembourg Red Cross received support to provide hygiene kits, emergency blankets and healthcare services to the most vulnerable refugees in Serbia and Macedonia.