Luxembourg's development cooperation - Annual report 2018

2018 marked the 20^th anniversary of the signature of the general cooperation agreement between the Malian and Luxembourg authorities. In addition, three years after the signature of the 3rd Indicative Cooperation Programme between Mali and Luxembourg (2015-2019), a mid-term review was launched in April in order to perform technical evaluations of the various programmes that make up ICP III and to make an assessment at a more political and strategic level. The conclusions confirmed the relevance of the strategic options of the ICP (i.e. development of agricultural sectors and systematic strengthening of the capacities of the implementing partners), but the evaluators also identified a number of weaknesses linked in particular to the failure to record the national contribution in the state budget, too great a diffusion of Luxembourg’s activities and, as a result, an inadequate level of sustainability of these activities. The results of the review will inform the thinking on the next ICP, the identification process of which will start in 2019. Luxembourg’s activities have been complemented over the last few years by a more intensive commitment to security and defence, especially to the European Union’s civil and military missions, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and the G5 Sahel Joint Force.

This increased commitment to security runs parallel with the enhanced cooperation to promote governance and compliance with human rights and international humanitarian law. Thus, in order to accompany the process of peace and reconciliation in Mali, Luxembourg contributed to the Independent Observer (Carter Foundation) appointed to evaluate the implementation of the provisions of the agreement signed in 2015 between the Malian government and the armed groups in the north of Mali and also to the establishment of the International Commission of Inquiry for Mali specified in the Algiers Agreements, the mission of which is to shed light on the violations and abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law that have taken place since the beginning of the crisis in 2012. Luxembourg also contributed to drawing up a compliance framework for compliance with human rights and international humanitarian law to be applied during the operations carried out by the G5 Sahel Joint Force, the headquarters of which are in Bamako.