Minister Romain Schneider at Lake Chad Conference in Berlin;
Credit: MAEE
Luxembourg's Minister of Cooperation and Humanitarian Action, Romain Schneider, travelled to Berlin on Monday 3 September 2018 to attend the High Level Conference on the Lake Chad Region, co-hosted by Germany, Nigeria, Norway and the United Nations.
The conference in Berlin aimed to reaffirm political efforts and mobilize additional financial support to address the humanitarian crisis in the Lake Chad region.
The discussions focused on how the international community, regional partners and the governments concerned could increase their cooperation to face the challenges of the region together, with particular emphasis on strengthening humanitarian assistance, resilience, crisis prevention and stabilisation as well as sustainable development.
At the conference, Minister Schneider delivered a speech in which he stressed that Luxembourg will continue its engagement in the region. Thus, Minister Schneider confirmed a total global amount of €3.5 million in exclusively humanitarian funding for the region in 2018.
In his speech, the Minister stressed that "the complex nature of this humanitarian crisis requires a concerted international and comprehensive response" and added that Luxembourg "will continue to support international efforts to find sustainable solutions for the region from Lake Chad".
The Minister also recalled that Luxembourg financially supports the crucial work carried out by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and reaffirmed Luxembourg's commitment to the World Food Programme in the framework of its multi-year partnership.
On the sidelines of the conference, Minister Schneider had a bilateral meeting with Laouan Magagi, Minister of Humanitarian Action and Disaster Management of Niger, long-standing partner of the Luxembourg Cooperation. Both parties took the opportunity to sign a memorandum on the next phase of Luxembourg support to the Ministry of Humanitarian Action and Disaster Management of Niger. Minister Schneider underlined that "thanks to this partnership we are concretising today the continuation of our collaboration focused on the reduction of the risks related to the floods in Niger".
