As part of his visit to Geneva, the Luxembourg Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Action, Romain Schneider, has had interviews with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
On this occasion, the Minister signed two agreements with two long-standing humanitarian partners from Luxembourg, as represented by Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC) and Filippo Grandi of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). These strategic partnership agreements provide the framework for Luxembourg support for the period 2017-2020.
The signing of these two agreements is part of Luxembourg's close relations with certain privileged partners in the humanitarian field. For example, a large part of the humanitarian budget has traditionally been allocated to UN agencies, including the World Food Program (WFP), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
In addition to the agreements signed with the ICRC and UNHCR on 26 January, Luxembourg will sign agreements with WFP and OCHA in the coming weeks, and an agreement with UNISDR was signed at the end of December. In line with a commitment made at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May 2016, Luxembourg strengthened its support for the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) by concluding a biennial agreement covering the period 2017-2018.
The conclusion of these multiannual agreements enables Luxembourg to meet international requirements for budgetary predictability and ensure continued support for humanitarian activities.
Together with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, and following his visit to Luxembourg, Minister Schneider spoke of the future mechanism for combatting impunity for crimes committed in Syria. Recalling Luxembourg's commitment to strengthening transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict situations and stressing the complementarity with efforts already under way to respond to the humanitarian needs created by the Syrian conflict, Romain Schneider confirmed the support of the Luxembourg government for the rapid introduction of this mechanism and announced by 2017 a voluntary contribution of €200,000 to this new instrument.
Photo by MAEE. From left to right: Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the ICRC; Romain Schneider, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Action
