Awareness-Raising

The work of aware­ness-rais­ing and devel­op­ment edu­ca­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the nation­al lev­el, also forms part of the chal­lenge of pover­ty erad­i­ca­tion. The aim of these activ­i­ties is to raise pub­lic aware­ness in Lux­em­bourg of the var­i­ous themes that relate to the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment of coun­tries and rela­tions between coun­tries, includ­ing fair inter­na­tion­al trade. They also aim to ensure that from an ear­ly age the pub­lic acquires the knowl­edge and skills need­ed to under­stand and engage in crit­i­cal think­ing about the caus­es and con­se­quences of pover­ty, and takes an active role in the devel­op­ment of fair­er and more inclu­sive societies. 

Projects and pro­grammes are guid­ed by the exper­tise of NGOs, acquired through expe­ri­ence in the field, as well as by the 2030 Agen­da and the 17 Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals, to account for the com­plex­i­ty of the chal­lenges of our soci­ety in its social, eco­log­i­cal and eco­nom­ic dimen­sions. These include human rights, gen­der equal­i­ty, food sov­er­eign­ty, the pro­mo­tion of a cul­ture of peace and non-vio­lence, pro­duc­tion chains, etc.

Nation­al NGOs play an essen­tial role in the imple­men­ta­tion of aware­ness-rais­ing and devel­op­ment edu­ca­tion activ­i­ties in Lux­em­bourg. In 2019, for exam­ple, the Direc­torate co-financed 13 annu­al projects and 14 three-year frame­work agree­ments with a total bud­get of EUR2.3 million.

In order to pro­mote increased cit­i­zen involve­ment, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion also pro­motes joint ini­tia­tives and cam­paigns between NGOs on spe­cif­ic devel­op­ment themes as well as on sus­tain­able devel­op­ment in gen­er­al. With­in this frame­work, the MFA allo­cat­ed an amount of EUR535,225 (100% co-financ­ing rate) to two imple­ment­ing man­dates in the field of aware­ness-rais­ing and devel­op­ment edu­ca­tion: the Third World Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre (CITIM) and the ​‘Rethink your clothes’ campaign.

The MFA has con­tin­ued to pro­vide financ­ing under CITIM’s man­date to Action Sol­i­dar­ité Tiers Monde (ASTM), which has since 1982 been pro­vid­ing spe­cialised doc­u­men­ta­tion and edu­ca­tion on the coun­tries of the South, North-South rela­tions and human devel­op­ment. This doc­u­men­ta­tion is made avail­able to the gen­er­al pub­lic in the form of a library. Since 1 Jan­u­ary 2015, the Min­istry has pro­vid­ed 100% of the fund­ing for CITIM. In addi­tion, the joint man­date of Fair­trade Lëtze­buerg a.s.b.l. and the Fon­da­tion Car­i­tas Lux­em­bourg for the joint imple­men­ta­tion of a cam­paign to raise pub­lic aware­ness of the chal­lenges of the tex­tile indus­try con­tin­ued, and includ­ed numer­ous actions to raise pub­lic aware­ness. The ​‘Rethink your clothes’ cam­paign was offi­cial­ly launched in the first quar­ter of 2018 and gained trac­tion through var­i­ous inter­ven­tions and events.

In the area of nation­al aware­ness-rais­ing and devel­op­ment edu­ca­tion poli­cies, the MFA par­tic­i­pat­ed in the meet­ings of the Inter­de­part­men­tal Com­mit­tee on Edu­ca­tion in Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (CIEDD) under the lead­er­ship of the min­istry respon­si­ble for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and the min­istry respon­si­ble for state edu­ca­tion on the basis of an alter­nat­ing pres­i­den­cy, with a view to defin­ing guide­lines for inte­grat­ing edu­ca­tion about sus­tain­able devel­op­ment into all lev­els of the Lux­em­bourg edu­ca­tion sys­tem. The CIEDD coor­di­nates these efforts with key insti­tu­tion­al stake­hold­ers and civ­il soci­ety actors. In this con­text, the Direc­torate for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs was also rep­re­sent­ed at the events of the Glob­al Edu­ca­tion Net­work Europe (GENE), with a view to improved mutu­al learn­ing and net­work­ing of the actors involved in devel­op­ment edu­ca­tion across Euro­pean and in Luxembourg.