On the occasion of the 2019 United Nations Pledging Conference, the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg announced its continued commitment to the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) by pledging a core contribution for 2019 of €800,000 and thematic contributions of €200,000 for local development and €200,000 for financial inclusion.

As one of UNCDF’s top donor countries, Luxembourg has become a key partner to UNCDF in the fight to eradicate poverty through “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources.

UNCDF’s core funding is a major contributor to the programme innovation stage by providing funding to support the organisation’s technical expertise and seed capital to develop new finance models and innovative approaches.

Core resources from Luxembourg allow UNCDF to maintain an ongoing country-level presence for the duration of a new programme. Evidence has shown that it requires a period of at least 12 to 18 months to develop new programmes and develop the necessary partnerships and financial resources needed to keep the programme going in the long term.

Core contributions allow UNCDF to take risks with new models and new learning and test ideas that institutional investors are not yet ready to take up. Additional resources will help reinforce UNCDF’s models, and support their innovation, scale up, and replication in a range of LDCs.

Luxembourg has supported UNCDF for more than a decade as a donor to both core and non-core resources since 2004.

Luxembourg’s thematic contributions to UNCDF for local development and inclusive finance have enabled UNCDF to develop and invest in important “frontier” areas of financial innovation and local development finance.

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