Celebration of the 10th anniversary of emergency.lu in the presence of HRH the Grand Duke
On 22 March 2022, the tenth anniversary of the mobile satellite telecommunications platform, emergency.lu, which is one of the flagship projects of the Luxembourg Development Cooperation, was celebrated at the Luxembourg Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai.
The festivities took place in the form of a cocktail reception in the presence of HRH the Grand Duke Henri, volunteers from the CGDIS humanitarian missions group and representatives of the emergency telecommunications cluster, including for example the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UNHCR.
emergency.lu is a public-private partnership between the Luxembourg government and three Luxembourg companies (SES Techcom Services, HITEC Luxembourg and Luxembourg Air Ambulance SA), which developed the project and have been running it since January 2012. The emergency.lu service is part of the global emergency response capacity challenge. By providing communication services in remote areas hit by chronic and humanitarian crises, the platform provides a solution to the lack of communication infrastructure after a large-scale humanitarian or natural disaster.
First deployed in 2012 in response to the humanitarian crisis following the civil war in South Sudan, the ministry has operationalized terminals in more than 20 different locations around the world. Current deployments include the pre-positioning of two terminals in Poland for deployment to Ukraine in response to Russian aggression and an operation in Tonga following the volcanic eruption that disrupted undersea fiber links.
Through emergency.lu, Luxembourg is a member of the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC), a group of organizations in charge of emergency telecommunications, with WFP as lead agency. In the context of emergency.lu’s anniversary, Luxembourg also organized this year’s annual plenary of ETC members, which took place on 22 and 23 March at the Luxembourg Pavilion.
Press release by the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs
Photos: © SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen
