Luxembourg's development cooperation - Annual report 2018

At the national level, the efforts made in the field of awareness-raising and development education aim to promote joint responsibility and allegiance to the global community, particularly through increased public involvement. This approach provides the public with the information and tools required to understand and critically analyse the causes and consequences of poverty while also enabling it to understand better how Luxembourg is responding to these challenges.

The national NGOs, the network of which is wide and diversified, play an essential role in the implementation of awareness-raising and development education actions in Luxembourg. Thus, in 2018, the Directorate co-financed 10 annual awareness-raising projects and 14 multi-annual development education framework agreements, signed at the beginning of the year following the ending of the previous 2015-2017 tri-annual cycle. In total, 1 782 524 euros were disbursed on the framework agreements and awareness-raising and development education projects in 2018.

Luxembourg’s development cooperation aims to stimulate dialogue the awareness of citizens in view of a better understanding of the complexity of the challenges of sustainable development in its economic, social and environmental challenges. In order to encourage the increased involvement of citizens, Luxembourg’s development cooperation aims to promote the joint initiatives and campaigns between NGOs on specific development issues and on sustainable development in general. In this respect, the MFEA has allocated an amount of 608 777,36 euros (co-financing rate of 100 %) to the implementation mandates for awareness-raising and development education.

The MFEA continued its mandated financing of the Centre d’Informations Tiers Monde (CITIM), the library of which makes specialised documentation and educational resources on the southern hemisphere, North-South relations and human development available to the general public. 

Furthermore, the joint mandate, launched in June 2017, to Fairtrade Lëtzebuerg a.s.b.l. and the Fondation Caritas Luxembourg to run a joint campaign aimed at raising the general public’s awareness of clothing industry issues continued and featured numerous dynamic awareness-raising actions. The “Rethink your clothes” campaign was officially launched in the first quarter of 2018 and gained traction via varied interventions and events.

In terms of national awareness-raising and development education policies, the MFEA actively participated in the meetings of the inter-ministerial committee for education and sustainable development education (CIEDD) chaired alternately by the ministry responsible for sustainable development and the ministry responsible for national education, with a view to defining the directions for integrating sustainable development education at all levels of the Luxembourg educational system. The CIEDD coordinates these efforts with the main institutional stakeholders and the civil society actors. In this context, the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Action was also represented at the events of the Global Education Network Europe (GENE) in order for the actors involved in development education at European and Luxembourg levels to improve their knowledge retention and networking.