Interministerial committee for development cooperation

The Law of 9 May 2012 amend­ing the amend­ed law of 6 Jan­u­ary 1996 on devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion and human­i­tar­i­an action defines the respon­si­bil­i­ties of the Inter­min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion (ICDC). It has the remit of giv­ing its opin­ion on the broad out­lines of devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion pol­i­cy and the coher­ence of devel­op­ment poli­cies. The law also asks the gov­ern­ment to sub­mit an annu­al report to the Cham­ber of Deputies on the work of the Com­mit­tee, includ­ing the issue of the coher­ence of devel­op­ment poli­cies. The Grand Ducal Reg­u­la­tion of 7 August 2012 lays down the make-up and mode of oper­a­tion of the Inter­min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee for Devel­op­ment Cooperation.

In 2020, the ICDC met five times under the chair­man­ship of the Direc­tor for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Action. In addi­tion to the rou­tine updat­ing on the flag­ship activ­i­ties of Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion at each meet­ing, includ­ing, in par­tic­u­lar, the reori­en­ta­tions of projects and pro­grammes as a result of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the work of the ICDC placed spe­cial empha­sis on pol­i­cy coherence.

Thus, an ini­tial joint meet­ing between the ICDC and the Inter­de­part­men­tal Com­mis­sion on Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (ICSD) was held. While the ICDC coor­di­nates the government’s devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion poli­cies and the coher­ence of devel­op­ment poli­cies, the ICSD, under the aus­pices of the Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate and Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment, is respon­si­ble for the plan­ning, imple­men­ta­tion and mon­i­tor­ing of the Nation­al Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Plan (NSDP) as a whole, ensur­ing the coher­ence of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment poli­cies. The joint ses­sion was facil­i­tat­ed by two experts from the OECD who pre­sent­ed the ​‘Strength­en­ing exist­ing insti­tu­tion­al mech­a­nisms and capac­i­ties for pol­i­cy coher­ence in Lux­em­bourg’ project. Over a 24-month peri­od this project will make it pos­si­ble to work on the fol­low­ing aims: (a) strength­en­ing Lux­em­bourg gov­ern­ment capac­i­ties to iden­ti­fy syn­er­gies, man­age pol­i­cy trade-offs and avoid neg­a­tive spillovers when imple­ment­ing the SDGs, and (b) improv­ing under­stand­ing among pol­i­cy mak­ers and key stake­hold­ers on how to apply pol­i­cy coher­ence and inte­grat­ed pol­i­cy-mak­ing in prac­tice to achieve the SDGs in Lux­em­bourg and abroad. This work will be con­tin­ued in 2021.

In addi­tion, the pre­sen­ta­tion of the results and Luxembourg’s score in the 2020 edi­tion of the Com­mit­ment for Devel­op­ment Index (CDI) by the Cen­ter for Glob­al Devel­op­ment (CGD) made it pos­si­ble to car­ry out an in-depth analy­sis and dia­logue on the impact of the range of Luxembourg’s poli­cies. Since the aim of the index is to draw atten­tion to the rip­ple effect of poli­cies and the way in which they impact the lives of res­i­dents of low and mid­dle-income coun­tries, the CGD is help­ing to encour­age a debate on poli­cies with an impact on devel­op­ment. A dia­logue based on ver­i­fi­able data thus con­tributes to a reform of poli­cies in the direc­tion of bet­ter coher­ence, in order to reduce inequal­i­ty and pover­ty across the world.

At fur­ther meet­ings of the ICDC it has been pos­si­ble to take stock of the evo­lu­tion of cer­tain Euro­pean poli­cies linked to devel­op­ment, such as the Team Europe approach, and to present ongo­ing work for the for­mu­la­tion of a sec­toral strat­e­gy with­in the Direc­torate of Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs on inclu­sive finance and the pri­vate sec­tor at the ser­vice of development.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the NGDOs’ Cer­cle were invit­ed to the ICDC’s meet­ings for all dis­cus­sions on pol­i­cy coher­ence, and one was facil­i­tat­ed by the Cer­cle. The reports on these meet­ings are pub­lic and are avail­able on the MFA’s website.