Coherence of development policies

Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion seeks to pro­mote the coher­ence of devel­op­ment poli­cies. This makes it pos­si­ble to ensure that all Luxembourg’s actions in a spe­cif­ic coun­try are prop­er­ly struc­tured and coher­ent and make an effec­tive con­tri­bu­tion to sus­tain­able development.

The 3D approach (diplo­ma­cy, devel­op­ment and defence) imple­ment­ed with­in Luxembourg’s for­eign pol­i­cy, espe­cial­ly through a coor­di­nat­ed coun­try approach in Cabo Verde, makes it pos­si­ble to ensure coher­ence between nation­al poli­cies and thus to con­tribute to sus­tain­able growth and stability.

This involves assess­ing whether and to what extent nation­al poli­cies effec­tive­ly con­tribute to the attain­ment of the aims set in Agen­da 2030 in devel­op­ing coun­tries. In this sense, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion sup­ports the inclu­sion of impact on devel­op­ing coun­tries with­in the Nohal­tegkeetscheck, which will make it pos­si­ble to test the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tives, thus boost­ing the syn­er­gies between nation­al poli­cies and inter­na­tion­al cooperation.

Nation­al­ly, the Inter­min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion (ICDC) is respon­si­ble for pan-gov­ern­men­tal coor­di­na­tion on devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion and the coher­ence of devel­op­ment poli­cies. The ICDC works in close part­ner­ship with both the Inter­de­part­men­tal Com­mis­sion on Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (ICSD), with which it held an ini­tial joint work­shop in June 2020, and with the Inter­min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee on Human Rights (ICHR).

In order to strength­en the mech­a­nisms that are vital for pol­i­cy coher­ence, such as the ICDC, Lux­em­bourg is cur­rent­ly sup­port­ed by the OECD through an insti­tu­tion­al scan, which will make it pos­si­ble to for­mu­late rec­om­men­da­tions for adjust­ing Luxembourg’s mech­a­nisms in order to make them even more effective.

For its part, the Cham­ber of Deputies con­tin­ues to play an impor­tant role regard­ing gov­er­nance and pol­i­cy coher­ence by pro­vid­ing over­all scruti­ny through reg­u­lar dia­logue with government.

The state of progress regard­ing devel­op­ment pol­i­cy coher­ence is also close­ly mon­i­tored by the NGOs’ Cer­cle de Coopéra­tion, which, with the sup­port of Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion, reg­u­lar­ly makes obser­va­tions and imple­ments aware­ness-rais­ing activ­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the areas of fair trade and social­ly respon­si­ble clothing.

Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is also aware of its respon­si­bil­i­ties in the area of human rights, and active­ly sup­ports the imple­men­ta­tion of the Unit­ed Nations guid­ing prin­ci­ples on busi­ness and human rights, with­in the frame­work of the sec­ond nation­al action plan. This year, Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion began to ask its pri­vate part­ners to make a com­mit­ment to respect human rights.