Objectives

The OECD provides support for capitalising Luxembourg’s efforts to strengthen its institutional framework for sustainable development and a whole-of-government approach envisioned in the Government’s coalition programme and the country’s National Sustainable Development Plan (NSDP).

The project aims at improving government capacities to address synergies, manage policy trade-offs and avoid negative spill overs when implementing the SDGs. In particular, the project focuses on strengthening institutional mechanisms, co-working processes, and skills to apply policy coherence for sustainable development in practice.

The project will draw on the OECD Recommendation on Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development, and build on the most recent findings from OECD work on the governance of the SDGs and policy coherence for sustainable development.

How we work with Luxembourg?
 

The project is undertaken in three phases:

1. A stocktaking and analysis phase aiming to provide an understanding of Luxembourg’s current institutional framework and capacities for enhancing policy coherence in the implementation of the SDGs. This phase involves the development of an OECD Institutional Scan on Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (PCSD) with a set of preliminary policy options. 

2. Assessment and Review. This phase involves a self-assessment of existing institutional mechanisms for policy coherence. The OECD produces a review of key mechanisms, policy processes and tools, which can support (as a key leverage point) the improvement of policy coherence in the implementation of the SDGs

3. An implementation support phase. Thematic workshops and peer-to-peer dialogue to support tangible steps towards the implementation of the specific tool or process that has been reviewed

Workshops and Events related to the project 

Virtual Kick-off meeting (June 26^th 2020)

The kick-off meeting involved the members of the Inter-Departmental Commission on Sustainable Development (ICSD) and the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Development Cooperation (ICD). It aimed at facilitating the exchange on core project priorities and  identifying Luxemburg’s policy coherence mechanisms and the objectives of the National Sustainable Development Plan (NSDP) that should be prioritised.  

Facts about Luxembourg and the SDGs

• The third NPSD- (2019) is used by the government as a mechanism to identify policies likely to have an impact on the three dimensions of sustainable development. The plan sets ten priorities: sustainable financing; diversifying and ensure an inclusive and future-oriented economy; promoting sustainable consumption and production; ensuring social inclusion and education for all; stop degradation of the environment; plan and coordinate land use; contribute at global level to poverty eradication and policy coherence; protecting the climate; ensure sustainable mobility; ensure conditions for a healthy population.
  
  Within the framework of the NPSD, the government aims to undertake actions to transition towards a green economy, which could be scaled up in the context of COVID recovery. For instance, the Government subsidised private renewable energy projects, incentivised measures to increase energy efficiency in private and public buildings and offered training to enterprises to sensitise them on how to reduce their consumption of energy and row materials.

  
  The development cooperation of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg also demonstrates its strong commitment to poverty reduction and humanitarian aid, and to effective work with its partner countries. In 2009, the Luxembourg government reached the quantitative goal it had set itself in the 2000s for the first time: to reach an official development assistance (ODA) level of one percent of the gross national income. ODA is implemented by the instruments of bilateral and multilateral cooperation, and in cooperation with development NGOs. Luxembourg’s General Development Cooperation Strategy: The Road to 2030 identifies policy coherence as a cross-cutting priority, with the aim of ensuring that policies are in line with the ultimate goals and objectives for sustainable development at the global level.

  Luxembourg is still facing numerous challenges with regard social cohesion. 21.5% of people in Luxembourg are living at risk of poverty or social exclusion (SDG Indicator 1.2.1), with children and adolescents especially at risk (23.6%), as well as single parent families. People in work at-risk-of-poverty represent 18.7% of working population.

  Luxembourg scores first among EU countries in terms of the percentage (76%) of surveyed population who responded that they were satisfied with the public transportation system in the city or area where they live.

  
  In order to better integrate the national and international dimensions to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and SDGs, Luxembourg aimed to strengthened the coordination between the Inter-Departmental Commission on Sustainable Development (ICSD), which is the central coordinator of domestic sustainable development policies, and the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Development Cooperation (ICD), which discusses policies likely to have an impact on developing countries and formulates non-binding recommendations to government. Civil society organisations, which have been active in enhancing policy coherence for development regularly participate to the ICD’s meetings and contribute to setting the annual work plan of the Committee.

  Since 2020, Luxembourg developed a Sustainability Check Tool “Nohaltegkeetscheck” (NHC) to assess legislative acts in relation to their impact against the 10 sustainable development priorities that the government has committed to. Ministries have to answer specific questions on the effects of the proposed law on each of the 10 priorities (i.e. Does the preliminary draft law have an impact on priority … of the PNDD? If yes under 1., what will be the possible positive and / or negative effects of this impact? What categories of people will be affected by this impact? What measures do you consider in order to be able to mitigate the negative effects and how could the positive aspects of this impact possibly be reinforced?, etc.). The sustainability check will become part of the legislative cycle and is presented to the Government Council, the Parliament, the State Council (Conseil d’Etat) as second Chamber and made available to the public. This online tool will be mandatory for new legislation and encouraged for other policies and the results will be public. This provide will civil society organisations with a great resource in their dialogue with the public administration for strengthening PCSD.