A joint visit of LuxDev and MFA to GIZ headquarters in Eschborn

On Monday, 28th April, a delegation composed of LuxDev and Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Defence, Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade (MFA) colleagues visited the headquarters of GIZ in Eschborn. The visit took place as part of ongoing exchanges between European actors of development cooperation. Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, Managing Director of GIZ, welcomed the delegation in Eschborn. On the agenda of the day were exchanges about the current developments in the cooperation sector, the future collaboration between LuxDev and GIZ in Cambodia as well as digitalisation and innovation.

To set the scene for the exchanges, both agencies presented their work and current priorities. Georges Ternes, Director of the Luxembourg Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid also presented an overview of Luxembourg’s current priorities for development cooperation.

For many years GIZ and LuxDev have been working with partners worldwide to promote sustainable development. Both agencies are members of the Practitioners Network and share the view that European development agencies should collaborate and strengthen partnerships on a strategic and operational level to deliver high quality programs.

As part of the strengthening of cooperation between the two agencies in Cambodia, Marcus Lange Director of Division Asia presented the work of GIZ in Cambodia.

Following the presentation and exchanges about the work in Cambodia, LuxDev and GIZ signed a contribution agreement to the Improved Service Delivery Programme (ISD).

The Luxembourg Cooperation, through LuxDev, will contribute 800.000 EUR funding for the activities of the ISD programme in 2025. After the signature of the General Cooperation Agreement between Luxembourg and Cambodia in April 2025, this contribution to the GIZ programme is one of the first steps to establish a presence of the Luxembourg Cooperation in the country.

The programme aims to support local governments to deliver high-quality services to the citizens in the sectors of waste and water management, health, administrative services and through improved fiscal decentralisation. The contribution of the Luxembourg Cooperation will be used for the following priorities, among others:

• strengthening decentralisation and female participation in leadership roles;
• support for digitalisation efforts to increase the efficiency of service provision;
• development of local environmental strategies;
• creating strong municipalities;
• improving financial management at local level.

As of now, LuxDev has established four delegated cooperations with GIZ. LuxDev is supporting two GIZ projects in Togo, namely Forests4Future and ProDigit. LuxDev is also contributing to the project ProFina in Benin and ISD in Cambodia.

In the afternoon, GIZ colleagues from different departments presented the agency’s work on digitalisation and artificial intelligence. Together with international partners, GIZ covers a wide range of topics such as e-commerce, digital learning and cybersecurity in their portfolio. For LuxDev cybersecurity and digital innovation are also key topics in the programmes. Other topics on the agenda included the internal digitalisation processes at GIZ and LuxDev.

After the fruitful exchanges, the two delegations reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthen collaborations between the two agencies. In the spirit of Team Europe, GIZ and LuxDev are looking forward to exploring future possibilities for collaboration.

The FIINOV programme in Bénin, the Forests4Future and ProDigit programmes in Togo and the Improved service delivery programme in Cambodia are financed by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and  implemented by LuxDev, the Luxembourg Development Cooperation Agency.