LuxDev - Our Agency

LuxDev is the Luxembourg bilateral development cooperation agency, active in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe since more than 45 years.

Its mission is to actively participate in the implementation of the development cooperation policy of the Luxembourg government, which mainly focuses on poverty eradication and sustainable development in its social, economic and environmental aspects. In order to achieve these objectives in the context of global development, Luxembourg allocates 1% of its Gross National Income (GNI) to Official Development Assistance (ODA) every year.

While the overall volume of our interventions has remained stable over the last couple of years, the Luxembourg Cooperation’s interventions have been carried out through increasingly complex partnership frameworks. Thus, in order to continue to face the challenges of development cooperation, LuxDev has set up various mechanisms to keep it connected to the evolution of the sector.

In the field, LuxDev’s work aims to strengthen their partner countries’ ownership of their development, i.e. their ability to exercise effective control over their own policies and development strategies, ensuring effective coordination of the development support provided by all technical and financial partners. Therefore, in each of its interventions, LuxDev seeks to act as a reliable partner and develop the capacities of the actors with whom the Agency cooperates. To this end, LuxDev aims to master and adopt cooperation approaches that are compatible with the principles of international agreements and are in line with the mandates entrusted by the Directorate for Development Cooperation of the Luxembourg Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs.

We seek to assist our partners, without substituting them in their efforts to progress.

To this end, LuxDev develops its expertise in the various fields of Luxembourg intervention as well as in the context of different development approaches and modalities. In recent years, the Agency has also acquired analytical and conception skills that enable it to make sound decisions in terms of risks and opportunities.

At international level, LuxDev actively participates in the discussions led by its peers and is actively involved in international networks, particularly in Europe, where its expertise has proven to be useful. The Agency makes use of operational collaboration opportunities, particularly in the context of the EU Code of Conduct on Complementarity and Division of Labour in Development Policy. This is why LuxDev has become a member of major networks such as the Practitioners’ Network and the Learn4Dev network.

These networks not only strengthen LuxDev’s operational capacity by forging sectoral partnerships in different countries but also provide the Agency with an ideal framework for joint learning and forward planning.

ISO 9001 certified since 2005

Certification is not an end in itself. However, the procedure required to make certification possible has enabled the Agency to reflect on its processes and set clear objectives in terms of efficiency, in order to ensure that the investments made contribute, in a sustainable way, to the improvement of living conditions of the populations in our partner countries.

In practice, the certification has allowed a complete review of the Agency’s processes. Potential risks have been identified and mechanisms have been set up to avoid unnecessary problems and initiate corrective action.

ISO 9001 certification is special because it acknowledges the efforts accomplished, without however allowing complacency. Thus, the certification has a three-year validity, but is re-evaluated each year by a surveillance audit, to verify that the commitments in terms of continuous improvement have been respected.

At the same time, ISO standards are reviewed every five years and revised as necessary to ensure the relevance of the tool and its usefulness to organisations.

The 2015 edition now replaces the 2008 version. In order to be able to maintain our ISO 9001 certification, an update of our quality management system was carried out in line with the new requirements of the standard.

The certification of conformity to the 2015 version was granted to us in July 2018.

LuxDev is now ISO 9001: 2015 certified.

Offices

In Africa as in Europe, LuxDev has a country office in each of the countries in which it operates. In Asia and in Latin America, these are regional offices that oversee the activities of several countries.

At the end of the Optimus deconcentration process launched in 2016, it can now be said that operations are carried out in the field and that headquarters' roles are now rather to set the overall strategy (via the updating of the Vision), to develop the standard and to make it evolve, to conduct the evaluations (internal and independent), to ensure ex-post internal control and to have the audits carried out.

As for the offices, they supervise and manage the operations in the field. They have a role of representation, supervision and management of the bilateral development programmes of their country and ensure the coordination, advice and sometimes arbitration in the most complex situations. In addition, they also have a specific role of internal control, mainly ex-ante, over the entire process of formulation and execution.

Closer to the realities of the field, the offices have a certain autonomy of management favouring which favours flexibility, an essential condition for the effective implementation of the programmes entrusted to LuxDev by the various donors.

A country or regional office is managed by a resident representative with one or more programme officers who supervise the national staff of the office as well the chief technical advisers and technical assistants assigned to projects / programmes in the field.

The resident representative represents the executive committee of the Agency towards the local authorities and as well as the national and international cooperation partners. It participates in the formulation and implementation of the programmes and advises on programmes during the identification process. It also has a specific delegation of powers to ensure that the objectives set for projects and programmes are effectively achieved and that any problems and weaknesses are addressed.

The offices are co-located with the cooperation office of the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (Luxembourg Embassy).

Since the realisation of development projects and programmes requires a coordinated and coherent intervention from all actors, the offices ensure an almost permanent internal relationship with the projects and programmes, but also with the headquarters of the Agency to ensure that the projects and programmes are implemented in line with the expectations of the donor and the beneficiary government.

In order to guarantee a strong articulation between the headquarters and the offices, a consultation area operates by videoconference. In this context, an implementation monitoring committee establishes a formal and regular dialogue mechanism in order to ensure the strategic and operational monitoring of the implementation of projects and programmes. Similarly, to ensure that project and programme interventions are coherent and relevant, the offices are required to establish regular contacts with the national party and the international agencies active in the sectors concerned.

From a practical point of view, the offices are co-located in the same buildings as the Embassies of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Thus, the two entities collaborate according to the principle of complementarity of roles and responsibilities. In this regard, the offices provide the Embassy with permanent support to facilitate and strengthen the political dialogue, in particular to promote the implementation of projects and programmes financed by the Luxembourg Cooperation.

CSR

For our Agency, the concerns related to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), namely the voluntary integration by companies of their roles, social (towards their employees and suppliers), societal (towards the civil society), environmental and economic, are not new, since they are linked to the Agency's very mission. However, it is not only within the context of the development cooperation programmes that LuxDev must think about these issues and take appropriate action, but also when it comes to the Agency's own life.

Thus, at the Agency's headquarters, we have opted for 100% electricity from renewable sources and we are offsetting the CO2 emissions from our air travel through development cooperation projects that save the same volume of emissions.

It is also,within the CSR context that we carry out actions with the aim to:

better control our energy consumption and reduce our environmental impact at headquarters and in our country offices;
promote more environmentally friendly mobility among our employees and partners;
prefer the acquisition of products from fair trade and the solidarity economy;
regularly monitor paper consumption at headquarters (constantly decreasing);
conduct environmentally friendly waste management (Superdreckskëscht label);
improve the nutrition of employees by providing them with fruits (local / organic).

"Business and Human Rights" National Pact

Since 20 September 2023, LuxDev is a signatory of the National Pact on Business and Human Rights. This pact supports companies in implementing due diligence in their value chain.

By signing this pact, LuxDev is demonstrating its concrete commitment to identifying risks and preventing human rights violations. In doing so, LuxDev joins the national community of companies committed to respecting human rights.

By joining the Pact, LuxDev commits to:

raise awareness among its staff and stakeholders on the protection of human rights in business;
appoint a person responsible for human rights within the organisation;
train relevant employees on business and human rights;
developing governance tools to identify risks and prevent human rights abuses;
implementing one or more grievance mechanisms to address reported human rights abuses;
publish a standardised annual report on actions taken.

As part of its commitment to the National Pact on Business and Human Rights, LuxDev has completed its first report in relation to the Pact and has developed a political commitment statement demonstrating its engagement in respecting human rights.

Download our report on Human Rights Download our Commitment Declaration

Code of conduct

LuxDev’s work is guided by four common values, which we respect and apply at headquarters and in the field. Integrity – synonyms include uprightness and incorruptibility – cannot be completely guaranteed through the threat of criminal prosecution or a system of controls, however tight. Integrity must be rooted in the company’s image and be a matter of personal concern for each and every member of staff. This Code of Conduct is derived from the common values defined in our corporate Identity:

Respect, Integrity, Solidarity, Effectiveness.

The employees of LuxDev act in accordance with this code and expect the same of their development partners. The Code of Conduct provides important information on the issues of integrity and corruption. It also offers suggestions on how to protect yourself against corruption.

Download our code of conduct

Vision 2030

LuxDev’s 2030 Vision is based on the sustainable development goals (2030 Agenda "Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development") and in particular the Luxembourg’s General Cooperation Strategy – The road to 2030, which sets out Luxembourg’s commitments in terms of development cooperation and humanitarian action.

The sustainable development goals pave the way for a better future. They respond to the global challenges we face particularly those related to poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation, prosperity, peace and justice.

LuxDev's Vision 2030 is based on four strategic axes that represent the major issues that will enable the Agency to best contribute to meet the global challenges defined by the Sustainable Development Goals and to integrate the principles of development effectiveness as well as the social, economic and environmental challenges of sustainable development in its action and contributions to the development plans and programmes of its partner countries.

The four axes of our 2030 Vision

Support: LuxDev supports its partners for an enhanced performance in the implementation of their development policies and strategies.
Partnerships: LuxDev brings together/brokers and develops multi-stakeholder partnerships to achieve sustainable development.
Operationalisation: LuxDev implements cooperation programmes agreed upon between the Luxembourg State and/or other donors and their partners.
Continuous improvement: LuxDev continuously strengthens its operational efficiency.

For further information on our 2030 Vision, please click here.

To read more about the results of our previous vision (2020 Vision), please click here.

Information notice on the protection of personal data

In the context of the performance of its tasks, LuxDev collects and processes a number of personal data. We attach paramount importance to the respect of privacy and the protection of the personal data of all persons concerned.

This is why we undertake to process your personal data securely and in compliance with the European Regulation of 27 April 2016 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data as well as with the applicable national law on the subject.

The information notice on the protection of personal data informs you about how we collect and process your personal information. It details the reasons (legal basis) for collecting your personal data, the purposes for which it is collected and the rights you have over your personal data and how you can exercise them.

Download the Information notice on the protection of personal data