Your Highness,
Dear vice chair of the University of Luxemburg,
Dear representatives of Noha,
Dear Mrs.Marije Postma,
Dear representatives of Echo,
Dear Mrs.Costanza Adinolfi,
Dear students,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I would first of all like to welcome here in Luxemburg all students who are starting today their postgraduate studies in the Network on Humanitarian Action. You will be the main actors here during the next couple of days and we are proud that Luxemburg is able to contribute to the training of the future leaders of the European Humanitarian effort.
Right at the beginning, I would like to congratulate NOHA’s program manager Mrs Marije Postma and the University of Luxembourg, in particular Mr.Jean-Paul Lehners, for their involvement in this joint Masters program initiated by the European Community Humanitarian Office. May I also say how grateful we are that we are able to welcome here today Echo's representatives and more specifically their Director General Mrs Costanza Adinolfi.
Let me in addition –as a third introductory remark- tell you the great pleasure I have to participate in the opening meeting of the Luxemburg NOHA program and even more so the pleasure I have to speak here today. There are a number of reasons to that, of which I would like to mention just two.
The first reason why I am grateful that I have been invited to speak here today is a very personal one and I hope you will forgive me that I start my speech with this kind of personal remark.
As I said, I am indeed very happy to speak here today in the context of a program initiated by the University of Luxemburg. And the first reason for this is that I have had very close links with this University over the last 12 years having been a lecturer here in civil law from 1992 to 2004. Teaching at University has been a great experience for me. It is certainly one of the things I will miss during the next couple of years and this is also why I am happy to have the opportunity to speak here today one month after my appointment to the Government. This allows me to touch bases again with the academic world.
The second reason why I am honored to speak here today is because it is my first public intervention in my capacity as Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs and in this context I am particularly honored by the presence of HRH the Grand Duke.
The purpose of your program, Ladies and Gentlemen, as I was told, is to get familiarized with contemporary issues of humanitarian action and you have more particularly chosen to devote your working sessions to the subject matter of humanitarian aid and cultural diversity.
In doing so, you have chosen a subject which is a very vast subject and which potentially covers a great number of political topics and this is, I guess, also why you have decided to discuss this subject during not less than six or eight working sessions.
The time one devotes to a particular subject is not under all circumstances a reliable indicator of the importance of a subject, but in the case of your subject “humanitarian aid and cultural diversity�? I think that the time you are devoting to discuss the subject together with the fact that it THE subject of your 2004 Intensive Program shows nevertheless the importance but also the complexity of the subject. Having gone through your program and having thus been able to have a look at the quality of the speakers that will address the NOHA-forum during the next couple of days is certainly another element pointing at the importance of the subject.
Having said this, I think that, as we are at the very beginning of your sessions, it is perhaps worthwhile saying a few words about Luxemburg’s official development aid, its goals for the next years. This will be the first part of my intervention. I will then focus in the second part of my intervention on Luxemburg’s humanitarian aid program and finally make a number of remarks about the subject for the next days �?cultural diversity and humanitarian aid�?.
a) Luxemburg’s Official Development Aid:
Few governments increased their Official Development Aid (ODA) as much as Luxembourg did in the last few years. .
This year our national ODA will reach 0,84% of our Gross National Income. This puts us among the top five of the donor countries together with Denmark, Holland, Norway and Sweden.
The new Government elected on June 13th of this year has committed itself to continue and to amplify the development cooperation effort in order to reach the 1% target within the years to come.
I am not committing to a specific date here – nor does, by the way, the coalition agreement -, but I can assure you that we will do our best to reach this target in the years to come.
I am saying this whilst being fully aware that ODA also has to live with constraints that are inherent to the State budget in times where economic growth is slower than during the second half of the 90’s.
One thing is sure however:
- We will continue to increase our ODA over the next years;
- Development cooperation being indeed –and this is particularly important to me - an area where Luxemburg – a country of great economic wealth - has shown and will continue to show that it is able to share with those that are less well off, with those how suffer. This is a clear expression of the solidarity of the people of Luxemburg.
Speaking about those who are less well off, it is also important to stress that development cooperation is as much about quality as about volume.
The fight against poverty and the support for sustainable development constitute the major objectives of Luxembourg's development cooperation policy. We carry out this policy in a spirit of partnership and participatory development.
To improve the efficiency and the impact of its policy, Luxembourg is concentrating its cooperation effort on a limited number of ten so called target or concentration countries. Six of these countries are in Africa, Cape Verde, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Namibia, two in Asia, Vietnam and Laos and two in Central America, Nicaragua and El Salvador.
The new Government has decided to review the list of target countries or – to be more precise - the criteria for target countries. This is an exercise which we intend to carry out in the long or middle term, it being well understood that you simply do not withdraw from a recipient country from one day to the next. Let me also say that as far as I do see things today – a month after having been appointed - it is my view that none of our target countries has reached a stage of development as a whole where it would be advisable for Luxemburg as a donor-country to engage into a process which, at the end of the day, would lead to a fundamental change in the status of one of these target countries.
Our aid focuses on the social sector and more particularly on areas such as education, basic health care, access to drinking water, rural development, etc..
The aid is untied and contributes to the economic development, to the creation of jobs and to the economic growth of the beneficiary countries.
Priority is also given to the transfer of know-how, one of our goals being to facilitate the appropriation, by the beneficiary countries, of their own development.
The gender dimension is another major feature of our policy.
I could continue here to outline a number of other important components of our policy, but I think that this quick overview gives you at least a certain flavor of what our goals are.
Some 30% of Luxembourg's ODA is used to finance its multilateral co-operation.
Last not least, Non Governmental Organizations have a key role to play in our development policy.
Their commitment constitutes a vital contribution to Luxemburg’s work to help the poor. I am personally convinced that Development cooperation without Non Governmental Organizations simply does not work and I am looking forward to a regular dialogue with Luxemburg Ngo’s. We have already set the path for this critically important dialogue at a first meeting with the representative body of the very vast majority of Ngo’s last week and we are currently planning a series of additional meetings to strengthen, yes to institutionalize this dialogue and to put in place a more informal day-to-day cooperation.
About 15 % of that ODA help us to co-finance NGO's programs and projects, whereas we reserve about 10% of our ODA to sustain humanitarian aid programs carried out on a bilateral basis as well as through NGOs and various international organizations.
This brings me to the second part of my intervention.
b) Luxemburg’s Humanitarian Aid
As you know, the European Union and its member states are the most important donors in humanitarian aid. Luxemburg, as a founding member of the EU, takes an important in the humanitarian effort.
As mentioned before, about 10% of the total ODA of Luxembourg was spent to finance humanitarian aid programs, about 36 euro per capita, and this does not include our contributions to the budget of the European Union and to ECHO. Luxembourg has contributed to 54 different humanitarian aid programs in 34 different countries and to 3 regional programs, thus being present in all the major crises situations around the world.
In order to structure our aid in a more efficient manner and understanding the need to be a predictable and reliable partner, Luxemburg signs every year agreements with the International Red Cross in Geneva, the UN High Commission for Refugees and the World Food Program.
This year, more than 42% of our humanitarian aid budget has been allocated to the different programs of these three organizations.
Besides our partnership with these three international organizations, the Luxembourg Government continues to develop its relations with the Non Governmental Organizations also in the field of humanitarian aid. They are also a key player in this area.
Over the last few years, Luxembourg has also extended the scope of its humanitarian activity. Luxembourg, as I already said, has been present on all the major crises. Last year, in response to the earthquakes in Algeria an in Iran, Luxembourg has been for the first time in the history of its humanitarian aid activity present on the field to be part in Search and Rescue Operations.
But we do not ignore those that fall of the front page of the news. Luxembourg concentrates a large part of its efforts on forgotten conflicts and ongoing crises situations.
In its annual report for 2003, ECHO has counted more than 50 armed conflicts going on around the world. The number of natural catastrophes has been constantly going up over the last years. The number of people suffering from hunger has gone up from 800 millions to 840 millions. There are more than 25 millions refugees and Internally Displaced Persons. Countries that were not accessible a few years ago, like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea for example, open their doors, thus adding inter alia more weight to our humanitarian burden. The war in Kosovo and the conflict in Chechnya show us misery at the Europe's front door.
The situation in the Great Lakes Region is not cleared. Countries like Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Ivory Coast and many others do not get the attention they deserve.
Darfour, although at the top of the news, lacks funding and although substantial efforts have been made by the EU and its member states – Luxemburg for example has contributed 1.2 mio euros - this is an issue which needs to be dealt with during the next weeks and months, whilst not forgetting the political efforts made at a EU level as well as at a UN level.
Darfour also has to do with cultural diversity and this brings me to the third and final part of my intervention. I will come back to Darfour later on in this third part of my intervention.
c) Humanitarian aid and cultural diversity
As I said before, you are devoting six days or even a little more to address this complex subject.
I have therefore considered that it would be unwise and even presumptuous from my side as the first external speaker of the first day of your gathering to come up with conclusions or definite statements on the question you are discussing.
Let me therefore raise a few questions and come up with a few examples which, I hope, can nourish your work.
Limiting myself to the question of humanitarian aid, it seems clear to me that a number of political topics in the context of humanitarian aid can be analyzed with reference to the issue of cultural diversity.
In how far are man made catastrophes to be linked to the issue of cultural diversity?
Is cultural diversity not at least part of the explanation when it comes to analyzing the causes of man made catastrophes?
Is it not sometimes or even perhaps in most cases an understatement to link the causes of man made catastrophes to cultural diversity?
Does the humanitarian aid that is provided for by the donor countries sufficiently take into account the cultural diversity, for example from a tribal point of view?
The answers to these questions - and to the many other questions that arise - obviously vary from crisis to crisis. There is no clear cut answer that definitely applies to all crises.
(i)
For several years, the situation in Iraq draws our attention, every day. I am not going to discuss here the origins nor on the complexity of this conflict in a country which has become last year, the main beneficiary of Luxemburg’s humanitarian aid.
It seems clear however that at least part of the errors in the postwar policy and of the violence which continues to hit this country are to be explained by the lack of preparation, of proper analysis of the historical, religious and ethnical background of the various communities living in Iraq.
Beyond the crucial issue of security, any political solution has to consider carefully, in particular, the weight to be given to the Shiites, the Sunnites and the Kurds as well as to the Turkmen and the Christian minorities within the new constitution and the new bodies to be set up.
(ii)
Afghanistan is another country which has focused our humanitarian attention over the last years and even decades.
This poverty stricken country first got involved in the ideological east west power struggle since 1979. Four million refugees fled abroad at the time.
After the withdrawal of the Russian troops it came under the siege of fundamentalists organizations.
Since the removal of the Taliban regime, the Karzai Government strives to consolidate security against the continuous threats of religious extremists.
In addition, the practice of Islam as well as the place to be reserved to the different ethnic communities and to their values and languages is just one of the issues to be looked at by the Government which managed recently to adopt a new constitution.
The success of all future humanitarian action, like the return of refugees, will also depend on a successful solution of all these issues.
The elections to take place shortly are to be considered as an important milestone on that road to a peaceful, democratic and more prosperous Afghanistan.
May I mention in this context Luxembourg's close and substantial cooperation with international governmental and non governmental organizations to offer assistance to the Afghan people. The status of women is closely linked to progress in all these areas We are also having a strong cooperation with UNFPA and UNDP meant to promote reproductive health and to improve the status of women in Afghanistan.
(iii)
The situation in Darfour is also of particular concern for us.
It has led to the internal displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in that region attacked by armed militias and Janjaweeds. Close to 200 000 people have fled to Chad, the neighbor country.
A huge - although possibly still insufficient - humanitarian operation is under way. Luxembourg has contributed over 1 million euros to international humanitarian as well as to several of our humanitarian non governmental organizations. It is also contributing to the financing of the operation led by the African Union in order to protect the cease fire observance team.
From a political standpoint of view, the Sudanese Government must comply with its commitments concerning the free flow of the humanitarian activities, the easy access and protection of all humanitarian workers, as well as the disarmament of the militias and the Janjaweeds.
Any long term solution will have to take into account the cultural diversity of the different parties in this new conflict opposing basically Arab Nomads and so-called African peasants fighting for scarcely available land. While Islam is the religion of the two parties, the Arab Nomads speak Arabic and the African peasants speak local languages.
The Darfour conflict occurs in a country five times big as a country like France. A former British colony, it was largely paralyzed since its independence by an armed opposition between the Islamic north and the animist and Christian south. This conflict (let’s call it the first conflict) ended up earlier this year with a peace agreement which might have been facilitated by the oil resources that have been discovered. These developments in the south might have triggered new expectations in the Darfour region and thus contributed to the outbreak of the crisis in Eastern Soudan.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfour. All this has to do with cultural diversity, but not only with cultural diversity.
Iraq has to do with cultural diversity, but not only with cultural diversity.
Afghanistan has to do with cultural diversity, but not only with cultural diversity.
Darfour has to do with cultural diversity, but not only with cultural diversity.
Cultural diversity explains part of it, not all of it.
I am sure you will have the opportunity to discuss these questions and others during the next days.
Let me finish, Ladies and Gentlemen, however my speech on a slightly different note.
The United Nations Development Program has devoted the main theme in its 2004 Human Development Report to the issue of 'Cultural liberty in today's diverse world'.
The report stresses that cultural choices today are dealing with recognizing and accommodating diverse ethnicities, religions, languages and values.
The report argues that in vastly different contexts and in different ways - from indigenous people in Latin America to religious minorities in South Asia to ethnic minorities in the Balkans and Africa to immigrants in Western Europe - people are mobilizing anew around old grievances along ethnic, religious and cultural lines, demanding that their identities be acknowledged, appreciated and accommodated by wider society.
The report goes on arguing that policies recognizing cultural identities and encouraging diversity to flourish do not result in fragmentation, conflict, weak development or authoritarian rule. Such policies, according to the report, are both viable and necessary for it is often the suppression of culturally identified groups which leads to tensions.
It seems to me that this report certainly is an element to be taken into account or to be discussed during the next days when you are addressing in more detail the issue of humanitarian aid and cultural diversity.
Ladies and Gentleman,
Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, says in the same report that
“beyond all differences in terms of cultures, civilizations, languages, religions, colors and traditions 'all people have one single common attribute: they are all human beings-nothing more, nothing less. And however different they may be, all cultures embrace certain common principles:
No culture tolerates the exploitation of human beings.
No religion allows the killing of the innocent
No civilization accepts violence or terror.
Torture is abhorrent to the human conscience.
Brutality and cruelty are appalling in every tradition.
(end of quotation)
In short, these common principles, which are shared by all civilizations, reflect our fundamental human rights.
More human rights, Ladies and Gentlemen, means less humanitarian crises or at least less man made humanitarian crises.
Less humanitarian crises means less humanitarian aid.
And the more human rights and cultural diversity go hand in hand, the closer we will come to reaching this objective.
May your program here in Luxemburg contribute to achieve this objective.
This is the hope I dare expressing here today.
I wish you all the best and we are certainly looking forward to learn more about the results of your Luxemburg session sometime in the very near future.
Thank you very much.