Luxembourg's development cooperation - Annual report 2018

The Committee met six times during 2018, on 2 February, 30 March, 1 June, 13 July, 5 October and 30 November. The representatives of the development NGOs’ Cercle de coopération regularly attended these meetings addressing policy coherence for development.

The Committee examined the draft annual report on its work for inclusion in the 2018 annual report of Luxembourg’s development cooperation. At the meetings in 2018, in accordance with the committee’s mandate, the following issues were addressed:

BROAD ORIENTATION

• The Committee was invited to and informed of the Luxembourg development cooperation conference, which was held on 19 and 20 September 2018 and attended by over 200 participants. Other than the presentation of Luxembourg’s development cooperation’s new general strategy and visual identity, the main theme of the conference was the instruments and resources to be mobilised to put the “leaving no one behind” principle underlying the United Nations Agenda 2030 into operation. Two round table discussions were organised, one of them regarding the implementation of the new strategy in the Sahel and the second one, facilitated by the Cercle des ONG, to debate strengthening the complementarity between Luxembourg’s cooperation actors. On the fringe of the conference, LuxDev, Luxembourg’s agency for development cooperation, organised a conference-debate on the occasion of its 40th birthday. 
• The Committee was regularly informed of the progress of the drawing up of Luxembourg’s development cooperation’s new general strategy. In particular, the delegates were invited to a workshop presenting the draft strategy on 14 June in the presence of key actors of Luxembourg’s development cooperation as well as to the presentation of the final document at the development cooperation conference on 19 September. The strategy is the framework for Luxembourg’s development cooperation’s roadmap as it contributes to achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In order to respond effectively to the collective commitment to “leave no one behind”, Luxembourg’s official development assistance (ODA) will focus on four priority issues: improving access to basic high-quality social services; enhancing the socio-economic integration of women and young people; promoting inclusive, sustainable growth and enhancing inclusive governance. 
• The new visual identity of Luxembourg’s development cooperation was presented to the Committee. Associated with the motto “Luxembourg – let’s make it happen”, the visual identity is part of Luxembourg’s overall branding strategy and thus aims to enhance the general consistency of Luxembourg’s visual identity for actions financed by Luxembourg’s public bodies channelled via ODA.
• The Committee was informed of the launch of the third call for projects under the Business Partnership Facility (BPF), which took place on 1 March 2018. The BPF is a financing facility with annual rolling capital of one million euros that aims to encourage actors in the Luxembourg and European Union private sector to work with public and private partners in the countries of the South to initiate sustainable commercial projects, with priority given to partner countries of Luxembourg’s development cooperation. The list of sectors eligible for co-financing, which consists of information and communication technologies, biohealth, fintech and eco-innovation, was expanded in 2018 to include two new sectors: the circular economy and logistics. 
• The Committee was informed of the success of the official visit to Senegal by His Royal Highness the Grand Duke from 21 to 23 January 2018. In particular, the visit to this long-term partner country enabled a new Indicative Cooperation Programme to be signed with an indicative budget of 65 million euros for the 2018-2022 period. Apart from visiting Luxembourg’s development cooperation projects, the delegation met representatives of the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) and the Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg, who are working in Casamance as part of a research programme combating HIV/AIDS and cervical cancer.
• The Committee was informed of the annual plenary meeting of the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) held in Luxembourg from 15 to 17 May 2018. The ETC is a global network of collaboration between organisations providing communications services in humanitarian emergency situations. Through the emergency.lu platform, Luxembourg has been an active member since 2011.
• The Committee attended a presentation on Luxembourg’s involvement in the West African countries in the Sahel using Luxembourg’s foreign policy 3D approach (diplomacy, development and defence), which aims to promote sustainable development and peace. 
• The Committee was given a presentation of the main issues and conclusions resulting from the Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank held in Busan, South Korea, from 21 to 25 May 2018. The general theme of the Meetings was the industrialisation of Africa, with reference to lessons that can be learned in this respect from the rapid development of Korea in recent decades. 

POLICY COHERENCE FOR DEVELOPMENT

• Delegates attended the presentation by an expert from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on the preliminary investigation report into policy coherence with a view to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, entitled “Applying the eight building blocks of policy coherence for sustainable development in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.” The presentation, over and above reviewing the main learning points in this subject, specifically referred to Luxembourg’s country profile and the challenges and opportunities connected with putting policy coherence for sustainable development into action. Upstream of the presentation, the various ministries had contributed the information to be included in the report for each of their respective fields. 
• The Committee was informed of the 2018 Commitment to Development Index (CDI) drawn up each year by the Center for Global Development (CDG), in which Luxembourg is in fifth place out of 27 countries assessed. Compared to the 2017 edition, where Luxembourg was in 13^th place, the country has made a jump of eight places. The aim of the CGD, an independent American research centre, is to monitor and compare the efforts of the 27 richest countries depending on their policies and the impact of these policies on developing countries. Alongside official development assistance, the CDI covers six distinct political areas: finance, technologies, the environment, trade, security and migration. Luxembourg supports the CGD financially as part of a consortium including Germany, Australia, Denmark and Sweden.
• The Committee was informed of the progress of the work to draw up the “Nohaltegkeetscheck” (NHC). The introduction of this instrument to analyse the impact of national policies set out in the 2018-2023 governmental programme is reflected both in the third generation national plan for sustainable development (PNDD) and in Luxembourg’s development cooperation’s new general strategy. The aim of this tool will be to analyse ab initio the effects of draft laws on sustainable development in Luxembourg and by Luxembourg (i.e. including the impact that national laws could have on developing countries) under the policy coherence for development approach.
• The delegate members took part on 30 November 2018 in a presentation session entitled “La cohérence des politiques pour le développement : Perspectives de son opérationnalisation aux Pays-Bas et présentation des outils d’analyse d’impact dans le contexte des Objectifs de développement durable” (“Policy coherence for development: views on putting it into action in the Netherlands and presentation of impact analysis tools in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals”). Facilitated by the Cercle des ONG, a representative of the Dutch foundation “Woord en Daad” discussed the issue, in particular in a context of policy coherence for development (PCD) in the Netherlands and the linkage of the PCD processes between governmental authorities and Dutch civil society and PCD instruments – both existing instruments and those being created in the Netherlands – and the challenges connected with their application. 

AGENDA 2030

• The Committee was informed of the progress of the formulation of the national plan for sustainable development (PNDD), the draft of which (27 September 2018) was approved on 25 July 2018 by the government council. On 27 September, the Minister for the Environment, Carole Dieschbourg, the Minister of Finance, Pierre Gramegna, and the Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, Romain Schneider, publically presented the draft PNDD, which is Luxembourg’s roadmap both at the domestic level and externally, translating the commitments it made as part of the United Nations programme “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” (Agenda 2030), based on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the 169 targets to be achieved. The PNDD is the result of an extensive consultation process carried out at both the political and societal level over a period of ten months that brought together actors from civil society, the private sector and the various government ministries and departments in close cooperation. These consultations led to the specification of ten priority fields of action in order to define Luxembourg’s vision and the challenges to be met in the long term, together with the measures and initiatives put in place and those planned to be taken via government action by 2030. In this framework, development cooperation and policy coherence for development, which are in the Committee’s mandate, are in the ninth action area, entitled “Contribuer sur le plan global, à l’éradication de la pauvreté et à la cohérence des politiques pour le développement durable” (“Contributing at the global level to poverty eradication and policy coherence for sustainable development”). In contrast to the other action areas, this area is for the “external” dimension of Luxembourg’s sustainable development. The PNDD and its 10 action areas will be monitored via a series of indicators in order to enable an objective periodical assessment of the progress made in implementing Agenda 2030.

STAFF ACTIVE WITHIN DEVELOPMENT

Pursuant to Articles 24 and 50 of the amended law of 6 January 1996, the Committee approved in writing or tacitly:

• 4 applications for cooperation official status
• 6 extensions of cooperation officials’ contracts
• 21 extensions of aid workers’ status