Lux-Development certified ISO 9001-2000 !

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg’s contribution rate to Official Development Aid (ODA) places Luxembourg’s Cooperation amongst the donors most committed to fighting poverty.

For Lux-Development, the ODA’s evolution during these last five years has meant an increase of more than 60% of the funds implemented in the interest of development cooperation programmes.

Anxious to guarantee to the Luxembourg Government an optimal use of the funds placed at its disposal, the Agency invested a maximum of efforts in the improvement of its management system. Today, these efforts have been rewarded by the ISO certification 9001-2000.

The certification relates to all the activities carried out on behalf of the Luxembourg Government

The certification audits were carried out by the Luxembourg company SNCH at the end of June and beginning of July 2005. The certification concerns all activities carried out on behalf of the Luxembourg Government. The auditors were not only interested in the operations of Lux-Development Headquarters but also in the Regional Offices in the field as well as the projects managed by the Agency.

To Lux-Development’s knowledge, there is at this moment no other bilateral agency which has achieved ISO certification 9001-2000.

Our ambition: to enable the Luxembourg Cooperation to position itself as a leader, at the quantitative as well as at the qualitative level


Certification is not an aim in itself. In fact the process required to make certification possible permitted the Agency to think about the organisation and to set clear objectives in terms of effectiveness, in order to ensure that the investments made contribute, in a sustainable way, to the improvement of living conditions of the populations in partner countries.

In practice, the certification enabled a complete revision of the Agency’s processes. Potential risks were identified and mechanisms were set up to avoid unnecessary problems and to start corrective actions.

Today, the Agency’s Quality Manual, which contains the personnel’s working tools (procedures, models, etc..), is used by all personnel, regardless of their status (employee, consultant) and location (HQ, Regional Office, Projects). This makes it possible to guarantee a certain coherence in the professional approach of 150 people spread over around 20 countries.

A nice reward for all the collaborators input

If 2005 is the year of certification for Lux-Development, it is thanks to the fact that the personnel agreed to devote the necessary time, in addition to their daily workload, to think of ways to improve the organisation and the operation of the Agency. It was a fabulous bet on the future!

The ISO 9001-2000 standard, because we want to continually progress!

The ISO 9001-2000 certification is special in that it acknowledges accomplished efforts, without however allowing complacency. The certification has a three-year validity, but is re-evaluated each year by an audit, to verify that the commitments in terms of continual improvement have been respected.

Certification is above all an incentive to continue to improve!