The Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Action, Romain Schneider, presented the 2016 annual development cooperation report, which showed that Luxembourg spent 1.02 per cent of its gross national income (GNI) on official development assistance (ODA).
ODA is a term used by the Development Assistance Committee to measure aid flow to the economic development and welfare of developing countries.
Despite its size, Luxembourg is one of the six countries that has committed to maintaining ODA at or above 0.7 per cent of their GNI. Those countries include; Germany, Denmark, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden.
In 2016, Luxembourg contributed with the second largest percentage of their GNI, 1.02 per cent, which was over €350 million, out of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, after Norway who contributed with 1.11 per cent of their GNI to ODA.
Luxembourg’s commitment to ODA is already showing positive results; Vietnam and El Savador no longer received development aid from Luxembourg in 2016 and managed to achieve the status of middle income countries. The main beneficiaries of Luxembourg’s aid were Syria, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Iraq, Mali, Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Yemen, Haiti and Nepal.
2016 was a year with many humanitarian issues, therefore aid was, and still is, critical. The international community have been working hard to find effective responds to the conflicts in Syria, Yemen, The Central African Republic, Horn of Africa and Iraq. Luxembourg has participated in various international meetings, such as the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul May 2016, a meeting in which countries deal exclusively with global humanitarian assistance.
There, Luxembourg joined the “Grand Bargain” initiative, an agreement to make humanitarian aid more effective. Since 1985, the percentage of ODA of Luxembourg’s GNI has clearly increased from 0,14 per cent, with a peak of 1.11 per cent in 2009, to 1.02 per cent last year. Hopes for other countries evolving at the rates of Vietnam and El Savador, are high.
Original source: WORT.lu.
Posted on 20 July. 2017.
