The festivities took place in the form of a cocktail reception in the presence of HRH Grand Duke Henri, volunteers from the group in charge of humanitarian missions of the CGDIS as well as representatives of the “emergency telecommunications cluster”, including for example the World Food Program (WFP) and UNHCR.
emergency.lu is a public-private partnership formed between the Luxembourg government and three Luxembourg companies (SES Techcom Services, HITEC Luxembourg and Luxembourg Air Ambulance SA) which developed the project and have operated it since January 2012. The emergency service .lu is part of the challenge of global response capacity in the event of a humanitarian emergency. By providing communication services in remote regions, hit by chronic and humanitarian crises, the platform provides a solution to address the lack of communication infrastructure after a large-scale humanitarian or natural disaster.
First deployed in 2012 in the humanitarian crisis following the civil war in South Sudan, the ministry has operationalized terminal response in over 20 different locations around the world. Deployments currently underway include, among others, the pre-positioning of two patients in Poland, in order to be deployed to Ukraine in the context of the Russian aggression, and an operation in Tonga following the volcanic eruption which disrupted communications. underwater optical fibers.
Through emergency.lu, Luxembourg is a partner of the emergency telecommunications cluster (ETC), a group of organizations in charge of emergency telecommunications, of which the WFP assumes the role of leader. In the context of the anniversary of emergency.lu, Luxembourg also organized this year’s annual session of ETC members, which takes place on 22 and 23 March in the Luxembourg pavilion.
Press release by the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs