Cooperation with the private sector

It is with this in mind that it has become nec­es­sary to scale up the col­lab­o­ra­tion between the actors of Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and the pri­vate sec­tor, and the for­ma­tion of a clos­er rela­tion­ship between them has been encour­aged. This has had the spe­cif­ic aim of iden­ti­fy­ing inno­v­a­tive solu­tions devel­oped in Lux­em­bourg and mak­ing them avail­able to help achieve devel­op­ment objec­tives in Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s part­ner coun­tries. Thus, those involved in Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion, the pri­vate sec­tor in the North as well as in the South and the research world are work­ing togeth­er to devel­op projects and approach­es which can demon­strate ben­e­fits that earn them a place with­in bilat­er­al pro­grammes. All the avenues explored in this frame­work place a cen­tral focus on the respon­si­ble con­duct of com­pa­nies in rela­tion to human rights and com­pli­ance with envi­ron­men­tal criteria.

The teams respon­si­ble for these areas at the Direc­torate for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs, as well as those at LuxDev, were sup­ple­ment­ed by addi­tion­al resources, and 2021 was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to review a num­ber of cur­rent instru­ments and projects in order to bet­ter struc­ture exist­ing and future col­lab­o­ra­tions with new part­ners from the pri­vate sec­tor. In terms of sec­tors, infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies (ICTs) and cyber­se­cu­ri­ty remain par­tic­u­lar focus­es, although oth­er areas that pro­mote knowl­edge trans­fer and local capac­i­ty-build­ing are not neglected.

The Busi­ness Part­ner­ship Facil­i­ty (BPF), imple­ment­ed by LuxDev, is a tool to encour­age the Lux­em­bourg and Euro­pean pri­vate sec­tor to engage with part­ners in devel­op­ing coun­tries. This part­ner­ship approach thus pro­motes the trans­fer of tech­nol­o­gy and exper­tise as well as job cre­ation in devel­op­ing coun­tries. The facil­i­ty tar­gets ICT, fin­tech, renew­able ener­gy, logis­tics, the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my, space, mobil­i­ty, Clean­Tech and HealthTech. Four high-qual­i­ty projects were select­ed in 2021, tak­ing the num­ber of projects cho­sen by the BPF to 34 since 2016. A clause on due dili­gence on human rights has been incor­po­rat­ed into con­tracts with enter­pris­es. Since autumn 2021, Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has been work­ing toward a refor­mu­la­tion of the BPF tool, the new pro­ce­dures for which will be pre­sent­ed in 2022.

Mul­ti­lat­er­al­ly, Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has con­tin­ued its com­mit­ment with the Enhanced Inte­grat­ed Frame­work (EIF), a mul­ti-donor pro­gramme direct­ly linked to the World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion (WTO). The pro­gramme aims to pro­vide spe­cif­ic sup­port to the least devel­oped coun­tries to enable them to play a more active role in the glob­al trade sys­tem. Luxembourg’s finan­cial com­mit­ment for 2016 – 2022 amounts to EUR4.5 mil­lion, bring­ing Luxembourg’s total con­tri­bu­tion to EUR9 million.

In March 2021, the Lux­em­bourg gov­ern­ment and SES Tech­Com launched the sec­ond phase of the SATMED telemed­i­cine project, which will be extend­ed until 2024. SATMED is a telemed­i­cine plat­form that uses emergency.lu’s equip­ment, tech­nol­o­gy and con­nec­tiv­i­ty and is made avail­able to NGOs and devel­op­ment agen­cies. The e‑health tool aims to improve pub­lic health in devel­op­ing and emerg­ing coun­tries, specif­i­cal­ly in iso­lat­ed areas with­out con­nec­tiv­i­ty. It is satel­lite-enabled and con­nects doc­tors and nurs­es based in remote loca­tions to the out­side med­ical world, pro­vid­ing access to the platform’s cloud-based appli­ca­tions for online train­ing, vir­tu­al con­sul­ta­tions, med­ical data man­age­ment and stor­age and video-conferencing.