Luxembourg's development cooperation - Annual report 2018

At the international level, in 2018 Myanmar remained strongly affected by the humanitarian situation in Arakan state, where over 500 000 people, most of them Rohingya, fled their homes and sought refuge in Bangladesh following violence and fear. In response to this crisis, negotiations over a general cooperation agreement between the Luxembourg government and Myanmar, as well as a visit at the ministerial level, were postponed in 2017 and discussions remained in a stalemate in 2018.

In 2018, Luxembourg’s development cooperation established two projects in Myanmar, one in the field of human resources development for tourism and hospitality, plus capacity building for administration of the sector, and the other a second bilateral project in the rural development sector in eastern Shan state, which is home to several ethnic minorities. It should be noted that these projects provided 475 employees of the Ministry for Hospitality and Tourism with training in tourism.

In parallel, Luxembourg’s development cooperation, with other donors, is supporting a trust fund implemented by the UNOPS (United Nations Office for Project Services) that addresses food security and subsistence issues (“LIFT”) as well as the establishment of a second phase of a project with IDEA that works on human rights in Myanmar in the context of the Constitution.