Laos

Lux­em­bourg opened an embassy in Vien­tiane in Feb­ru­ary 2016. A gen­er­al frame­work for our devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion rela­tions was estab­lished in Vien­tiane in 2000 with the sign­ing of a gen­er­al coop­er­a­tion agree­ment. The first Indica­tive Coop­er­a­tion Pro­gramme (ICP), with a bud­get of EUR18 mil­lion, was signed in 2003.

Ear­ly 2022 con­tin­ued to be affect­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. While the major­i­ty of coun­tries had reduced restric­tions linked to the pan­dem­ic, Laos was still seri­ous­ly affect­ed by the virus, with peaks in new infec­tions between Jan­u­ary and April 2022. At the begin­ning of May 2022, the gov­ern­ment gave in to the pres­sure of the pop­u­la­tion in the face of the socio-eco­nom­ic cri­sis, caused by the her­met­ic clo­sure of the coun­try for over two years, and reopened the borders.

Faced with the health sit­u­a­tion at the begin­ning of the year, Lux­em­bourg decid­ed to con­tin­ue its assis­tance to local health author­i­ties and increased its bud­get for sup­port to the Min­istry of Health for com­bat­ing the spread of COVID-19. An amount of EUR475000 has thus been allo­cat­ed to the acqui­si­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of med­ical sup­plies and con­sum­ables for the pre­ven­tion and con­trol of infec­tions in three of our inter­ven­tion provinces (Vien­tiane, Bolikhamx­ay and Khammouane).

The Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s activ­i­ties resumed their usu­al pace from the sec­ond half of 2022. At the same time, from the begin­ning of 2022, the mis­sion to for­mu­late the new projects for the new five-year pro­gramme in Laos took place. In July 2021 the fifth ICP was signed. It has a fund­ing enve­lope of EUR95 mil­lion and cov­ers the 2023 – 2027 period.

This process has result­ed in four new bilat­er­al projects in the same sec­tors, includ­ing the pri­or­i­ty sec­tors of health, voca­tion­al train­ing, local devel­op­ment and the pro­mo­tion of the rule of law, good gov­er­nance and access to jus­tice, all of which were approved by the gov­ern­ments of Laos and Lux­em­bourg in Decem­ber 2022. For the new phase of the project in the high­er edu­ca­tion sec­tor, it is key to note the par­tic­i­pa­tion and co-financ­ing from the Swiss coop­er­a­tion agency and the Euro­pean Union (EU). The Swiss coop­er­a­tion agency will also con­tribute to the financ­ing of the local devel­op­ment pro­gramme under the new ICP V.

The health project will pri­ori­tise strength­en­ing health sys­tems with a greater focus on nutri­tion and includ­ing com­ple­men­tary mea­sures in car­di­ol­o­gy, while explor­ing the option of tri­lat­er­al coop­er­a­tion with Mon­go­lia in the car­dio­vas­cu­lar sec­tor. There are also plans for a small­er-scale exten­sion of activ­i­ties to the province of Bokeo in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the local devel­op­ment pro­gramme and the Unit­ed Nations Joint Pro­gramme (UNJP). The pro­fes­sion­al skills project will no longer focus only on the tourism and hos­pi­tal­i­ty sec­tor, but also on the agri­cul­ture and forestry sec­tors, which should be brought into line with the local devel­op­ment pro­gramme. The local devel­op­ment sec­tor will pro­vide annu­al fund­ing for dis­tricts to imple­ment pri­or­i­ty actions in the areas of water, san­i­ta­tion and hygiene, edu­ca­tion and feed­er roads, in line with dis­trict devel­op­ment plans. Con­cern­ing high­er edu­ca­tion in law, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is also sup­port­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lux­em­bourg and the Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Laos, includ­ing reg­u­lar exchanges of stu­dents and mem­bers of both uni­ver­si­ties. This project also includes sup­port for the devel­op­ment of the capac­i­ties of legal prac­ti­tion­ers (judges, pros­e­cu­tors, lawyers, police offi­cers and inspec­tors from the anti-cor­rup­tion agency) through forums organ­ised by the Insti­tute for Legal Sup­port and Tech­ni­cal Assis­tance (ILS­TA). Anoth­er new area of engage­ment is the work with the Lao prison sys­tem to improve deten­tion conditions.

It should also be not­ed that the EU and Switzer­land will par­tic­i­pate in the financ­ing of the ICP V pro­grammes, with sup­port from the EU for the voca­tion­al train­ing pro­gramme, while Switzer­land will par­tic­i­pate in that pro­gramme as well as in the local devel­op­ment programme.

Decem­ber 2022 also saw the very first vis­it of H.R.H. the Grand Duke, accom­pa­nied by Min­is­ter Fay­ot, to Laos, to cel­e­brate the 25^th year of diplo­mat­ic and devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion rela­tions. Dur­ing this his­toric vis­it, the Grand Duke had a dis­cus­sion with Thon­gloun Sisoulith, Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic, while Min­is­ter Fay­ot talked with Prime Min­is­ter Phankham Vipha­vanh. Franz Fay­ot also signed four bilat­er­al and tri­lat­er­al (Lux­em­bourg, Switzer­land and Laos) agree­ments, so that the four main pro­grammes in the ICP V could begin in 2023. The del­e­ga­tion vis­it­ed sev­er­al projects by the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion, such as the fac­ul­ty of law, the Marie Therèse Hos­pi­tal and the nurs­es’ train­ing school in the province of Vien­tiane, the Pas­teur Insti­tute of Laos, the Lao-Lux­em­bourg Heart Cen­tre set up by the NGOAide au développe­ment de la san­té, the Acad­e­my, which is the train­ing cen­tre in hos­pi­tal­i­ty and cater­ing in Vang Vieng, and the cen­tre for infor­ma­tion on unex­plod­ed explo­sive ord­nance (UXO) in Luang Pra­bang. The del­e­ga­tion also met NGOs and the Lux­em­bour­gish com­mu­ni­ty in Laos.

In addi­tion, the 14^th Laos-Lux­em­bourg part­ner­ship com­mit­tee meet­ing was held in Lux­em­bourg in Octo­ber 2022, led by Kham­jane Vong­phosy, the Lao Min­is­ter for Plan­ning and Investment.

In Decem­ber 2022, a new part­ner­ship was con­clud­ed with the Unit­ed Nations Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) in Laos to con­tribute to the mine clear­ance of UXO, rem­nants of the sec­ond Indochi­na War. This con­tri­bu­tion, with a bud­get of EUR1 mil­lion for the 2022 – 2024 peri­od, will be imple­ment­ed in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion local devel­op­ment project in the province of Khammouane.

Sev­er­al oth­er com­ple­men­tary bilat­er­al ini­tia­tives in the area of health are sup­port­ed by the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion. Thus, through the PaRe­CIDS project (Part­ner­ship for Research and Capac­i­ty Build­ing in Infec­tious Dis­ease Sur­veil­lance), cur­rent­ly in its third phase and imple­ment­ed by the Lux­em­bourg Insti­tute of Health and the Pas­teur Insti­tute of Laos, a Lao-Lux­em­bourg lab­o­ra­to­ry has been set up with­in the Pas­teur Insti­tute in Vien­tiane, focus­ing on research into viral dis­eases that can be pre­vent­ed using vac­cines. In addi­tion, the Lux­em­bour­gish NGOAide au Développe­ment de la San­té (ADS) is con­tin­u­ing to work in the field of car­diac surgery. The activ­i­ties by ADS will form part of the bilat­er­al health project under the cur­rent ICP.

In addi­tion, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion has con­tin­ued its work with five Lux­em­bour­gish NGOs in the field of devel­op­ment and human­i­tar­i­an action: Aide au Développe­ment de la San­té (ADS), Appui au développe­ment autonome (ADA), CARE Lux­em­bourg, Hand­i­cap Inter­na­tion­al Lux­em­bourg and Fon­da­tion Car­i­tas Lux­em­bourg. Their pri­or­i­ty sec­tors of oper­a­tion are: med­ical ser­vices, health, rur­al devel­op­ment, edu­ca­tion, voca­tion­al train­ing, clear­ance of land-mines and explo­sive rem­nants of war, and food and nutri­tion­al security.