Luxembourg's development cooperation - Annual report 2016

Ninety-three associations currently have the approval of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) pursuant to the amended law of 6 January 1996 on development cooperation and humanitarian action. Two associations were newly approved as NGOs in 2016. NGOs received 40 397 408 euros for development cooperation activities via these main financial instruments:

• Framework cooperation agreements: 18 framework agreements were co-financed in 2016 at a total cost of 21 327 186 euros. Seven framework cooperation agreements were renewed in 2016;
• Individual co-financing of development projects: 110 individual projects by 45 NGOs were supported in 2016 at a total cost of 10 340 563 euros;
• Implementation mandates as part of bilateral cooperation: 8 729 659 euros.

Added to this are contributions recorded as official development assistance allocated for humanitarian action (emergency aid, food aid, crisis prevention, reconstruction and rehabilitation), subsidies for development education and awareness-raising activities and support for administrative expenses incurred in the preparation and monitoring of the development activities. In total, the ODA allocated to national non-governmental organisations in 2016 was 56 821 835 euros, i.e. 16,05% of Luxembourg’s official development assistance for this budget year.

Luxembourg’s development cooperation attaches great importance to civil society organisations as fully-fledged development actors. In effect, it is one of the development cooperation systems which has most recourse to civil society organisations to implement development projects and programmes. NGOs are partners to Luxembourg’s development cooperation – a complementary route for bilateral aid, enabling activity in countries and sectors where the Ministry cannot intervene and, by working closer to the beneficiaries, reaching parts of the population of developing countries where bilateral cooperation is not present.

The large number of approved NGOs and the percentage of ODA allocated to NGOs as a result bears witness to the importance that the Luxembourg population attaches to civil society organisations and to ways of expressing its international solidarity. The Ministry’s strong commitment to Luxembourgish NGOs, supporting both development projects and awareness-raising and development education projects, is enabling ODA to remain at around 1% of GNI. Effectively, through the NGOs, the Luxembourg population can participate and be involved directly and substantially in the implementation of Luxembourg’s development cooperation policy.