Laos

With a funding envelope of EUR 95 million, its activities focus on the four target provinces of Bokeo, Bolikhamxay, Khammouane and Vientiane. The four priority areas are health and nutrition; integrated local development; skills development for tourism, agriculture and forestry; and the promotion of the rule of law, access to justice and good governance.

The new health and nutrition programme continues Luxembourg’s support for basic and high-quality health services, especially for the most vulnerable. While the core area of maternal and child health remains at the forefront of efforts, nutrition has been added to ICP V to address the challenges of malnutrition in Laos.

In 2023, the activities of the Luxembourgish NGDO Aide au Développement de la Santé (ADS) in the field of cardiac surgery for children were incorporated into the bilateral health and nutrition programme in order to promote synergies and increase the efficiency and sustainability of the activities. In addition, from now on the health and nutrition programme will support the blood cold chain through the provision of medical equipment to the Lao Red Cross, which is in charge of the national blood transfusion system. Finally, the programme will also support the third edition of the Lao Statistics Bureau’s Lao Social Indicator Survey.

The second major priority for Luxembourg’s Development Cooperation in Laos is local development. The programme will continue to encourage participatory planning and channel programme resources toward achieving district and village priorities. The interventions selected include access to water, the construction of bridges and sanitation facilities and credit mechanisms. The programme will also assist central, provincial, district and village authorities in improving public services for the benefit of local communities. By supporting policy dialogue, the programme aims to mitigate some of the threats facing rural communities in Laos, including land insecurity, deforestation and poor educational outcomes.

In the vocational training sector, Luxembourg’s Development Cooperation has traditionally focused on hospitality and tourism training. The scope of the new programme has been extended to include the agriculture and forestry sectors, in order to provide a skilled workforce to help Laos reap the benefits of these high-potential sectors in the near future.

In the area of support for the rule of law, Luxembourg is assisting the Lao government in its ambition to guarantee access to justice for all and to strengthen its legal education system in order to train the next generation of professionals. An additional element aims to improve detention conditions in a number of prisons. In addition, the programme will promote good governance in many authorities and will continue to tackle certain cross-border issues, such as combating environmental crimes and trafficking in human beings or wild animals. In the context of the FATF’s review of Laos, the programme also provides support for combating money laundering, seeking to limit the impact of future shocks by sharing Luxembourg’s best practices in this area. A decision was finally taken, in 2023, to include inter-university cooperation in the bilateral project in order to create synergies and ensure better efficiency.

It should also be noted that the European Union and Switzerland are contributing to the financing of two ICP V programmes by delegating sizable budgets to LuxDev.

The multilateral projects are complementary to bilateral activities and focus on the same priority sectors. The most significant multilateral programme is the United Nations Joint Programme (UNJP) on reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health, implemented by three UN agencies: the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and UNICEF. Efforts to clear landmines that are remnants of the second Indochina War continue with funding of EUR 1 million for the 2022-2024 period.

Four Luxembourgish NGDOs have been active in Laos in 2023: Appui au développement autonome, CARE Luxembourg, Humanity and Inclusion Luxembourg and the Fondation Caritas Luxembourg. Their priority intervention sectors are medical services, education, vocational training, food security and agricultural production.