Non-governmental organisations

Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion attach­es con­sid­er­able impor­tance to the role and activ­i­ties of non-gov­ern­men­tal devel­op­ment organ­i­sa­tions (NGDOs). In 2023, 91 non-prof­it asso­ci­a­tions or foun­da­tions had min­is­te­r­i­al approval from the Min­istry, giv­ing them the sta­tus of NGDOs. Dur­ing 2023, 24 mul­ti­an­nu­al devel­op­ment frame­work agree­ments were co-financed. In addi­tion, 29 new devel­op­ment projects were sup­port­ed fol­low­ing the two calls for pro­pos­als launched by the Ministry.

With regard to the aware­ness-rais­ing and devel­op­ment edu­ca­tion com­po­nent (SENS/ED) in Lux­em­bourg, 15 mul­ti­an­nu­al frame­work agree­ments (2022−2024) were sup­port­ed and 12 annu­al projects received sub­si­dies from the Min­istry. The two projects Rethink Your Clothes and CITIM, which have been fund­ed since 2022, expire at the end of 2024. The Min­istry decid­ed, start­ing 1 Jan­u­ary 2024, to extend the dura­tion of the SENS/ED frame­work agree­ments from three to four years and to har­monise the co-financ­ing rate at 80% for SENS/ED sub­si­dies. The review of the method­ol­o­gy applied to grant appli­ca­tions in the field of SENS/ED in Lux­em­bourg is in progress. The new method­ol­o­gy will be tar­get­ed towards impact mea­sure­ment and will be more suit­ed to the SENS/ED work by Luxembourg’s NGDOs.

Fol­low­ing the con­clu­sions of the FATF mutu­al eval­u­a­tion report, and in par­tic­u­lar rec­om­men­da­tion 8, the Min­istry decid­ed to use the exper­tise of an exter­nal con­sul­tant to devel­op a tool to deliv­er a risk-based approach for accred­it­ed NGDOs. The tool will con­sist of pro­por­tion­ate risk-based super­vi­sion on the one hand and mea­sures to mit­i­gate risk, on the oth­er. It should be recalled that rec­om­men­da­tion 8 aims to ensure that non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tions (NPOs) are not exploit­ed by ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tions seek­ing to (i) present them­selves as legit­i­mate enti­ties; (ii) exploit NPOs for the pur­pose of financ­ing ter­ror­ism, includ­ing in order to cir­cum­vent asset-freez­ing mea­sures; and (iii) con­ceal or obscure the clan­des­tine diver­sion of funds intend­ed for legit­i­mate pur­pos­es but divert­ed to ter­ror­ist aims. At the end of 2023, a ques­tion­naire was sent to all accred­it­ed NGDOs to obtain an ini­tial analy­sis of the risks of ter­ror­ist financ­ing in the sector.

The Min­istry con­tin­ued in 2023 to work in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Cer­cle de coopéra­tion on the self-help guide for NGDOs, which gives them tools to pre­vent, detect and deal with cas­es of sex­u­al exploita­tion and abuse and harass­ment that may arise with­in their organ­i­sa­tions in Lux­em­bourg and with­in part­ner organ­i­sa­tions. The guide is cur­rent­ly being finalised.