Humanitarian action

For 2019, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs allocated a total budget of EUR 53.94 million for humaniarian intervention, including contributions for humanitarian issued from the mutilateral budget line and from the development cooperation fund. The year was dominated by the response to humanitarian crises, particularly in Syria and Yemen, but also in the Sahel and the Lake Chad regions, Mozambique and Bangladesh. For all these humanitarian crises, the government made substantial funding available to support the humanitarian operations of UN agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and to carry out emergency projects run by Luxembourgish NGOs.

In preparation for possible humanitarian emergencies, Luxembourg reserves about 75% of its humanitarian aid budget for emergencies. This aid is allocated according to need and with a particular focus on the most vulnerable people, taking account of several indicators such as the classification of humanitarian crises, risk management indices (INFORM) and the ECHO and OCHA indicators for forgotten crises.

After an emergency, the transition phase aims to support the efforts of affected populations to rebuild their lives and regain their livelihoods. The objective of the transition phase is both to link the emergency phase with the development phase and to support the community and individuals in the process of reconstruction and rehabilitation.

In line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction adopted in March 2015, the MFA allocates at least 5% of its humanitarian action budget to financing activities in the area of disaster prevention, resilience and risk reduction.

In 2019, emergency.lu provided services to humanitarian organisations in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Venezuela, the Bahamas and Mozambique at the request of the World Food Programme (WFP), the ETC (emergency telecommunications cluster), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UNICEF and the European Commission. Where necessary, the services were also accessible to local authorities and the affected population.