 Thank you very much, all of you who joined and in particular the MA field coordinators and MAOR members for this webinar, which is on the International Mine Action Standard on the assistance. And I understand that in addition to those, I would say linked to the MAOR, they are also other colleagues. Welcome to you all. The mind ascending is the objective of this webinar is threefold. One is to raise awareness on this new, I would say, slash proposed, but adopted IMAAS. Number two is to clarify the role that the Mine Action Standard can play in victim assistance and number three to, I think, promote compliance. And in terms of context, of course, we are very pleased to have Elke Hotentat, who was the fourth mind ascending behind this new IMAAS, 13.10. She will be the main speaker to brief us, but she will also be accompanied by others. To make it less dry, if at all possible, when the UN Bureau of Path speaks, I'm very glad to be opening this session because it brings me back when I believe we were together, Elke and I had many colleagues from UMass and all at the Maputo Review Conference, and I remember in particular being on small groups discussions, including one side event with Elke leading, as usual, on victim assistance. I can't remember the theme, but it was, I think, integrating mine action in larger frameworks. And then we went on a few conversations, and I can say that she was instrumental of influencing us to get our acts together to do the United Nations Justice on Victim Assistance in Mine Action, which we updated in 2016, the one earlier having been in 2003. So I'm so pleased now we are finishing the circle because the UN policy on victim assistance in mine action refers to the IMAAS to draw from. Now, the full circle, almost the full circle, we have a new product, and then I can bet you, we the UN will be reactive and we will update the UN policy. So for the sake of clarity, I'm told, it's worth noting that it's HI that led to the development of this IMAAS, not necessarily the MAOR, in which we are right now. Although we were all very supportive of the process, she needs no introduction, but she's the policy lead on violence reduction at HI, and also has served for about two years as co-coordinator of the Mine Action AOR. And thank you to the other speakers that will be intervening as well. I'm told I need to shut up now. I pass the floor to Christelle, who would facilitate, but I understand we are under some time pressure. Welcome again. Christelle, over to you, please. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, everybody. Very pleased to see a large crowd joining us today. So the first discussion point I would like to mention is that 18 years ago, the GICHD was commissioned by UNMAS to identify how Mine Action AOR could best contribute to ensuring that mine and UXO survivors receive more resistant existence. Can you hear me? Yes, we can, but we hear some background noise. Can whomever close your microphone, please? This is Bruno. There's some extra noise. Please check your microphone. If you would please verify that your microphones are dead. Thank you. To this study found that in many cases, Mine Action had played little operational in direct service provision, but had been able to advocate for the needs of mine victims as well as to help to mobilize resources for the specialist healthcare organizations and bodies best positioned to provide assistance to people critically injured by explosive ordinance, survivors, and other persons with disability. One of the key findings of this study was particularly relevant to our discussion today, and it was the following. In 2002, the study found there was a widespread lack of clarity about the operational role of Mine Action in providing assistance to victims of land mines and UXOs. Despite the burn manifesto, the declaration of Kampala, and the joint W2ICRC strategy on land mine victims assistance, and guidance provided by a number of organizations on the provision of service, or as it was called then, the care and rehabilitation of victims, clear guidance on the role of the Mine Action sector in victim assistance have not been available. Nearly two decades later, IMAAS 1310 on victim assistance provides this much needed clarity. That's my opening point, and now I would like just to go over the agenda. The first, Alka and Rory will go over why we decided to do an IMAAS on VA. Then Alka will describe what is victim assistance, as well as the principles of victim assistance. Then she will go over the scope of the IMAAS, some also information about terminology, which is a critical issue. We will quickly zoom in the role of the Mine Action sector in victim assistance, because people in attendance are Mine Action operators and coordinators. Then we will have colleagues from FSD, HI, talk about the roles and responsibilities of Mine Action operators. Finally, Gary and Alka will focus through the role of responsibilities of the national Mine Action authorities, and also of survivor organization, and of course, also of donors. If we have time, we will also talk about sex, age, and disability, disaggregated debt data, as well as the human development model, if time allows. We have a full agenda, and I am giving the floor to Alka. Please, Alka, you have the floor. Thanks, Christelle. Hello, colleagues, friends. Lovely to see you all here. Over 50 of us. That's wonderful. Daniela, may I kindly ask you just to put up the PowerPoint presentation? I will briefly speak really in a sort of back-to-basics moment on what victim assistance is. I'll then hand the floor to Rory, my colleague from the GICD, before I carry on. All of us here know that victim assistance is a legal obligation, and you can go to slide number three, Daniela, and that it is one of the five complementary groups of activities of Mine Action. The UN policy on victim assistance, just referred to by Bruno, recognizes the central place of victims in the response against mines and explosive remnants of war. Unlike humanitarian demining, victim assistance is also a part of broader, long-established domains, such as health, education, labor, disability, social protection, and even poverty reduction. It requires a long-term commitment that should continue well after clearance work has been completed, and as such, really the ultimate responsibility to provide the necessary services to both direct and indirect victims, rests with state entities such as ministries of social affairs, health, education, labor. Now, while various standards exist on the different elements of victim assistance, including on emergency and ongoing medical care rehab, prosthetics and orthotics, and here you can think about the international society for prosthetics and orthotic standards, guidance on the role of the mine action sector and victim assistance that a recognized international mine action standard provides has been lacking. This, while state and non-state parties as well as mine action authorities, centers and operators have indicated that greater clarity around their respective role in victim assistance is required. So this IMAAS aims to fill the need for clearer guidance on this particular pillar of mine action. It lays out the roles and responsibilities of the mine action sector on this pillar, and it is a guide on how key actors in the sector can contribute to victim assistance. Each has an important role to play in ensuring that needed services are accessed and available, and it's a role that the sector is really well placed to give, given its privileged access to casualty data and its related knowledge on the needs and geographical location of people injured by explosive ordinance, requiring immediate medical attention, as well as survivors and indirect victims in a need of continuum of services. IMAAS 1310 comes into force as soon as an actor receives mine action funding. Even if this does not include funding for services in areas such as health, rehab, prosthetic orthotics, mental health and psychosocial support, or those that facilitate inclusion in school, work or social life. So with that introduction, I would like to hand the floor over to my colleague Rory at the GICD, manages the secretariat for the IMAAS review board. So Rory, the floor is yours. He will just highlight the process for getting to where we are today. Thanks, okay. Thanks very much. Can you hear me? Can I just check if you hear me? Yep, just for those of you that don't know me, my name is Rory Logan. I work at the GICD and I serve as secretariat to the IMAAS review board, which is chaired by UNMAS, and I actually note that the chair of the review board, Alan McDonald, who I work for, is on the call as well. I've just been asked to give a quick overview of the process that led to where we are now, which is that we have a version of the document adopted by the review board. Now, obviously, as we've heard, though IMAAS has been in place for nearly 20 years, there hasn't until this year been a standard specifically looking at VA. In previously, the IMAAS framework linked to the UN strategy in reference to it, it was a reference to it was included on the website. But as of February 2018, the review board considered a proposal by HI that came from Elkie and her team to actually develop a standard that would govern that pillar operationally and for the mine action sector. The board chose to gave that mandate. They reacted positively and asked that HI and a group of colleagues go ahead. The decision to push forward with the standard on victim assistance was included in the IMAAS work plan that was also approved by the IMAAS steering group, which is the group of director level people in the UN and the director of the GI CHD that sort of sits above and provides executive steering for the IMAAS framework. They included it in the work plan in 2019, and a technical working group was established, which spent most of 2019 developing the document. Now, that working group was quite ably led by Elkie and co chaired by Gary to both of HI, who are also on the call, but it wasn't just composed of operators. It also had members from national mine action authorities, one donor organization, the ICRC and other relevant stakeholders that came together over the course of that year and sort of to debate and develop several versions of the document with the aim of trying to have the document approved just ahead of the fourth review conference, which helped us in Oslo in November last year. Now, we did just about get the final version of the document ready for Oslo, but I'm afraid, as Bruno pointed out, being a not a bureaucratic process, but the process had to be followed. So the actual vote that took place to for the review board to approve this standard and have it published on the IMAAS website didn't happen in time for Oslo and instead the board elected to defer that vote until their physical meeting in February this year. And so on the 10th February this year, they voted to approve the document as it is. And what that has done is that has triggered its publication as a draft IMAAS with review board approval on the IMAAS website. And when I say draft, it still requires to go through the UN governance system. So it has to be considered by the IMAAS steering group, but given that they put it on agreed to it on the work plan, that might that's hopefully just a formality, it then goes forward once they've considered it to the interagency coordination group for mine action. And once the principles adopt it, then the little thing on the website saying draft is taken off and it is and it is considered an enforced standard, as Elke says. Being mindful of time, I won't go through any more and I have to apologize. I actually can't stay for the rest of this meeting, but I hope that's exactly what you wanted Elke and back over to you. That's perfect. Thanks much, Rory. Christelle, is that all right? I'll just carry on. Yeah, carry on. Okay. Daniela, could you go to the next slide please? Daniela, can you go to the next slide? Thank you very much. So I'm going to take you through a few pieces of knowledge that are really fundamental in understanding how this IMAAS is constructed. Daniela, can you please go to slide number four, the one before? So what is victim assistance? I think it's important to unpack that first. So the international legal obligation on victim assistance recognizes that victims are entitled to receive a so-called range of age and gender sensitive services and an effective legal and policy framework. But let's unpack that. Consider victim assistance as a house as it's drawn here and I'm borrowing the image presented here by Cherie Bailey. We used to work with the implementation support unit for the Antipersonal My Men Convention a long time ago. So what we can see is at the foundation of the house, we need data. What kind of data do we need? We need two types of data. We need sex, age, and disabilities aggregated data on casualties and time allowing. We will take a closer look at this later. Important here to understand that we have been pretty good at collecting sex and age disaggregated data, but we do not know who amongst casualties actually were people who were already living with a disability prior to having an accident with an explosive ordinance. We also need data on available services to inform people of what is available, identify gaps in service delivery, and to support really importantly referral. Of course data collection and management needs to be done with respect for relevant data protection regulations and data should be shared with appropriate national entities while ensuring that data ethics and protection principles are respected. The my action sector has since long collected casualty data for the purpose of informing who to target for explosive ordinance risk education or what land to prioritize for clearance. It has not, however, been used to facilitate improved access to and the provision of services for victims. And so with IMAS 1310, the sector now also needs to analyze and share this data for this purpose. What does that mean? For example, it means reviewing the data to understand a range of things, including mortality versus survival rate of men, women, boys, and girls in order to inform actors providing emergency medical care in the event of an accident. Sorry, in order to make sure that in the event that a higher than acceptable mortality rate is found, in other words, anything over 12 to 14 percent, that medical actors can be aware of that and know that there's a lack of medical emergency services. Another example of analyzing this casualty data for the purpose of victim assistance is to inform actors responsible for providing services, whether rehab, prosthetics, orthotics, or in education in the event that the number of children amongst casualties is high, as we have seen in recent years, to carry the data out of the mine action silo, which is normally where it gets trapped, by communicating it to the Ministry of Education on the need to provide inclusive education. Sharing identifying data about persons sometimes is not possible due to protection issues. In those instances, non-identifying data should be shared to enable authorities to plan the required services. As such, the data to which we as the mine action sector of access can contribute, if used for this purpose, to saving people's life right after an accident or to enabling a child who has been blinded by an accident with an explosive device to go back to school or an adult who has lost, for example, both lower limbs to access credit to set up a small business. So victim assistance, as you can see in this house, is built on this basis of understanding on this data, and then is comprised of five other elements. There's four surface areas, so we have emergency and ongoing medical care. It's known like that in the mine action sector, but outside of the sector, that is actually called health. Another element of the house is rehab and psychosocial support, also covered under the sectors of health. And then there's socioeconomic inclusion, a bit of an odd term outside of the mine action sector, and instead is understood as inclusive education, inclusive livelihoods, and social inclusion. It is plain as day that related services are all part of broader sectors. And while the sector has a role to play in facilitating access to these services, it is also clear that it is not within the mine action sector's remit to deliver these services, nor that it is necessary to develop a parallel set of services, as was something thought in times past. I'd like to take a moment to just look at casualty data, data collection efforts by the sector, as I believe it risks being less clear that this too should be part of broader national data collection work, whether on injury surveillance, social protection, information management systems. Unfortunately though, this data tends to get stuck in an INSMA, an information management system for mine action database, without it being communicated to relevant authorities and service providers. This is a huge missed opportunity that in addition carries the risk that this data is lost when a country reaches it article five obligations. And with that, he's the closure of its mine action center. Think of the case of Uganda, where with the closure of the Uganda mine action center, all casualty data disappeared. It was not shared with relevant authorities and as such was not actionable to them after closure of the mine action center. This is not a sustainable approach to data management, and underscores the fact that casualty data has so far not been collected for the purpose of victim assistance. The roof of the house that you see here is made up of national laws and policies. These should be developed and implemented to ensure budgets, strategies, and programs are in place to deliver this range, this continuum of health, education, labor, social protection and other services in response to a solid understanding of needs in terms of who, where, and what. The roof of the house also includes the development of legal and policy frameworks to guarantee the rights of victims with a few to ensuring opportunities in society on an equal basis with others. It's important to know that these policies and legal frameworks need not to be developed for victims alone and instead should cover people critically injured by an explosive device alongside other people with life-threatening traumatic injuries. It should treat survivors alongside other persons with disabilities, and it should treat indirect victims alongside other vulnerable persons. In certain instances, the Mainben Treaty and CCM obligations on victim assistance have led to the development of a national action plan on victim assistance in those countries where a response to injury, disability inclusion, or social protection were not prioritized. It was the case in Chad, in Algeria, and in Tajikistan, for example. In these countries, victim assistance created a national dynamic that led to policy and program development that led to the provision of services and the enactment of rights of victims and a range of people with similar needs as them. Well, identification and referral are not mentioned in this House of Victim Assistance. Related services are vital if victims are to access available services. Victims tend to live in rural and remote areas far from capitals where most services are provided. Many barriers exist, including time and cost, to reach services that tend to be based in those urban areas. Absence of childcare and accommodation, lack of information or physical access, and discriminatory attitudes. Identifying victims where they live and supporting them to access services is a vital step in ensuring increased participation and improved quality of life. Can I ask you to go to the next slide, Daniela? I will cover, I believe, three more slides with less content than the one I've just unpacked, so just bear with me. The interactive part of this webinar will start shortly. So there are many principles on victim assistance. You see aid here, which are in addition to the core humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence. I will definitely not unpack all eight. Instead, we'll focus on two, non-discrimination and accessibility. Now, if we have time afterwards, I might also unpack the rights-based approach. Whilst the important principle of non-discrimination was not fully embraced by the sector in its earlier years, I believe we now have nearly an all-encompassing understanding that we cannot favor one group of persons over another. This means that we now appreciate that access to services should not depend on the cause of the injury or impairment, but only on need. The Convention on Class Diminations makes this clear for once and for all. Said differently, if an operator conducting non-technical survey meets a person in need of service, for example, a prosthetic leg because of a mismanaged diabetes, this person is just as eligible to receive information on available services as a survivor. And you'll see that provision of information about available services is a core component that should be now fall under the responsibility of the mine action sector as per this IMS. The principle of accessibility is equally key in that this entire IMS is written to increase people's access to services, to eliminate some of the most fundamental barrier to accessing services. And this is a lack of knowledge about available services. There's also a huge lack of knowledge on the part of service providers about the needs and geographical location of survivors and other people in need. Now, this document we believe, as you will see as we go in it with my colleagues, is a much needed document. It has been welcomed by the sector, but it will also, as you will shortly see, open up areas for debate. Let's make it clear that we at H.I. do not have all the answers and that we look forward to exchanging with you on that. Can you go to the next slide, Daniela? So let's take a brief look at the scope of IMS 1310, which is slide six, Daniela. IMS 1310 recognizes upfront that the ultimate responsibility for victim assistance lies with affected states. It describes that particular roles and responsibilities of the mine action sector in supporting victim assistance. Specifically, it articulates the roles and responsibilities of national mine action authorities and national mine action centers, who are working in support of relevant government entities charged with coordinating and providing services and with developing and implementing policies to meet the needs and address the rights of explosive warden and victims amongst their broader population. This IMS also identifies the role of mine action operators and donors as well as the UN and survivor organizations. Rory well explained the development process for this IMS. In addition, there was another step, which was that H.I. met with approximately 30 people in September of 2019 to define the actual roles and responsibilities of affected states. We met with representatives from 17 countries. In addition to representatives of these countries, the ICBL was there as well as the implementation support unit to the mine and treaty and UNMAS. Let's move to the next slide, seven on terminology. I will really only speak to a few of the terms being used. As all of you are really familiar with the IMS series, three terms are used to indicate a degree of responsibility or intended degree of compliance to conduct certain actions. These are the terms shall, should, and may. In layman's language, shall translates as a must, should as pervert, and may as optional. Now, while in the earlier days of the mine and treaty there was still a lack of consensus as to the meaning of the term victim, this is fortunately no longer the case. I trust you're all familiar with the terms victims, direct and indirect victims and survivors. If you had a chance to review this IMS, you may have noticed that the document also refers to another term, namely critically injured in the section that lays out the role of mine action operators. A critically injured person is a person that has not yet been medically stabilized and may still die from their injuries without accessing life saving emergency medical services. The victim assistance expert group charged with the responsibility of developing this IMS felt it was important to also refer to this group of direct victims given recent trends to increasingly refer to survivors and less to victims. This shift brings with it the risk that the need for access to and the provision of life saving emergency medical services for people critically injured is forgotten. Knowing that this can greatly reduce the mortality rate, i.e. ensure that many people injured actually become survivors, the IMS makes special mention of this group of people. I go to slide eight on the role of the mine action sector and victim assistance. So you could see this as the terms of reference for the mine action sector and victim assistance. This is section six of the IMS, section seven then breaks it down per actor. Now I just want to remind everybody who's here that victim assistance should be implemented in what's called a dual approach, also called the integrated approach. With on the one hand, I should be clear by now multi sector engagement by non mine action actors that reach people that are injured survivors and people otherwise impacted by explosive ordinance accidents. On the other hand, there should be specific victim assistance efforts undertaken by the mine action sector in four core areas. First one being information management, including data collection, analysis of disaggregated data and dissemination of aggregated data. The second area of work is referral of victims and other people with similar needs to relevant service providers through the appropriate government body using existing referral mechanisms if available. Thirdly, we should be promoting and monitoring multi sector engagement and share information on specific issues related to victims with relevant actors in an effort to mobilize a multi sector response. And the example I gave earlier was we see that the mortality rate of victims is really high anywhere over 12 to 14 percent. Then we know we have to act. We have to carry that data to the Ministry of Health and other health actors to mobilize an emergency health care response in those geographical areas with high mortality rates. The fourth area of work is supporting the development of relevant national action plans and related coordination mechanisms, including the mobilization of resources required to support victim assistance. That means, for example, sitting at the table when a national action plan on disability is developed or on social protection to make sure that the specific needs of victims, whether direct or indirect, are taken into consideration. It's important to keep in mind that these efforts should be carried out to support governments of affected states to ensure services are available and accessible. This is the ultimate aim of the sector's contribution to victim assistance. As such, the sector's engagement with other domains is necessary to promote the progressive mainstreaming of victim assistance in the health, disability, education, employment, development and poverty reduction sectors. This is required as long as the mine action sector is active in the country or until victim assistance is fully integrated into other sectors, whichever comes first. And with that, I go to the last slide that I will speak to at such great length, which is slide nine, on the roles and responsibilities of mine action operators. Could you move to the next slide, Daniela, please? Thank you. Section 7.2, and that's the one we'll cover first, because we believe that most of you are here, are most interested in that section. Time allowing, we will delve into the role of mine action authorities and centers, survival organizations and donors. But depending on the debate that this is going to raise, we may not get to that today. So section 7.2 outlines the roles and responsibilities of mine action operators. And whilst other mine action actors in this IMS are addressed by should, operators role is defined as shells. Now, I just want to say one last thing before I move on here. I think it's really important to understand that section 7.2 applies in a context where any one of the five pillars of mine action are implemented or supported. So whether you have victim assistance, earmarked funding or not, section 7.2 has to be carried out. And it essentially highlights responsibilities and the minimum standards that are expected. So as such, this IMS can be seen as a minimum standard of the sector's contribution to victim assistance. If you read the IMS, and this is my last few words, you may have picked up on the fact that the IMS refers to victim assistance specific efforts and to victim assistance activities. Specific efforts refers to all efforts outlined in section 7, while activities refers to provision of services in the sectors that victim assistance is a part of, i.e., health, rehab, education, livelihood, social inclusion. On that note, I'd like to pass the floor now to Lopke, a colleague of mine who works with the Fondation Suiste des Minages, the Swiss Foundation for Demining, who has a really interesting experience to share that predates this IMS on how FSD through their regular mine action activities already started to contribute to or have the intent, because all of this came into being just before COVID to contribute to victim assistance. Lopke, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Okay, I think that was better. So first of all, thank you for inviting me to add a little bit of my recent experience at least to this meeting. And thank you very much for your hard work, all of you, or some of you at least, to put in this important document. My name is Lopke Dijkstra, and I've been working for over 15 years in this sector, victim assistance or rehabilitation work in the humanitarian sector in a broader aspect. So I'm very aware of the importance of this document in several missions in several countries. I've often faced a challenge of not having this document in place. So I'm very happy with these developments. So currently, I'm involved with FSD, which is the Swiss Foundation for Demining based in Geneva. And as the name suggests, this organization is originally focused on demining. Now, the idea existed in the organization to integrate victim assistance, which I thought was a very good idea. And since October last year, I started to set up the victim assistance pillar within the Mine Action Program. What I will do, and I will try to keep it short, is to share a couple of my experiences in doing this and integrating the victim assistance in a demining organization, some very interesting experiences. And I think this IMS can surely help to do this properly. So what I did so far is I started off to write some policy within the organization, because obviously, there was no victim assistance policy as such. And then I developed a pilot project to be carried out in Afghanistan, in the province in northeastern Afghanistan, which is not an easy project site, but a site with a very great need for victim assistance, especially because there's a lot of victims, but also it's very, very remote, very difficult to access. So I wrote up a pilot project after visiting the area and doing the analysis, mapping existing services, generally mapping the existence of victims and their needs, which I will come back to later on. Next, I developed the SOP, the Standard Operational Procedures for Victim Assistance. And again, this was a quite a difficult exercise because there was no guiding document. And I surely hope that this IMS will help us in this. The SOP was then credited by the government. And also we achieved the well, the commitment of the community leaders to carry out this pilot project. Next, I started to train a coordinator from the area who will, when the situation allows, then train a team of four victim assistance focal persons who then go into the area and identify the victims, identify their needs. And most importantly, I set up the referral system, but they will do the actual referral to existing service providers. Then in order to do the identification, I put together a question now about or to identify the victims. And we have a database of some cases existing. Why? Because FSD has been doing the carrying out the demining activities for over 10 years in this area. So there is a lot of information. One of the pitfalls is that we might think that this information is complete, which probably it isn't. There are victims, there are cases registered in the IMSMA, but I'm pretty sure that this information is not up to date and is not complete. Then another challenge is to identify not only the victims, not only the direct and indirect victims, but also identify their needs. And the problem in this area, like in many areas, is that the needs are partially related to being a landmine or explosive victim, but also there are a lot of general needs, like poverty, there's a lack of paid jobs, there's people are just living under very harsh circumstances. And there comes a challenge to set the boundaries to the projects, which people we can assist and which we simply can't. Now this comes to the, or to come back to this, the form that I developed and should be tested once the activities can be carried out. This will not only cover, well, this questionnaire tries to distinguish the needs and the issues and the problems that people are facing, whether they are related to being a victim, yes or no. And then again starts the difficult part of trying to focus our assistance on the fact that they are victims. Okay. So I briefly mentioned the existing service providers. I also mentioned that this area is very remote and underservice. Now there are service providers like ICRC, but as Elko also mentioned, they are located in the more urbanized areas, while the victims are located in the local and in the remote areas. Now the transportation is one of the main problems that provide people from access to services and also information. People simply often don't know. They don't know which services exist and also they don't know their rights. So what we try to do in this project is to bridge that gap basically, is to identify, refer where needed and possible, make sure that this referral is not only done on paper, but is actually carried out. And last step is also to evaluate if the service provided were actually useful and did improve the quality of life. Now going from the quality of life, I can move on to the observations that I did while setting up this first of all this pilot project, because the victim assistance in my opinion is very much aims to improve the quality of life of landmine and other explosive ordinance victims, whereas mine clearance is much more measured in quantitative data. And this is one of the first differences that I realized between, for example, demining activities and victim assistance activities. So the differences in measurements, differences in targets, in goals, and also in a broader perspective. Whereas mine clearance is a job that in the end, hopefully it is finished. Whereas victim assistance is an ongoing job. And this is one of the very obvious, but also obvious topics, but also I realized that this is often overlooked is that the victim assistance is a long term process. The collaboration with other actors, the sustainability, the accountability and the governance are topics that are very different in, for example, mine clearance. Another difference that I, and the challenge that I came across is the language. We are talking about different things. We are talking about different needs. We are talking about different persons. And also the people who carry out this work come from different backgrounds. Demining, in my experience, is often done by people with a military background. Whereas victim assistance has strong relationships to the health and social sectors, but also education, work. There is so much related to it that is not necessarily related to other mine action pillars. And I think this is a big challenge ahead of us. And I think this is a big challenge ahead of us. Another point that I never realized so much until the last couple of months is that there is also a difference in perspective when you look at donors. Donors that are funding demining activities are not necessarily interested in funding victim assistance. And again, the long-term commitment requires a very different donor than the relatively short commitment of land clearance. Another thing that honestly surprised me a little bit is that there is still some sort of idea that once a person has received services, the job is done. And what surprised me is that this is still also the approach of service providers within the victim assistance sector. For example, I was setting up the referral system with the ICRC clinic in one of the nearest town close to this project site. It was said, well, in your project area, people are being serviced. They received assistance, which is true in many cases, but it was done over 20 or 30 years ago. Because in this specific area, there are victims dating back to the Soviet period. So people are mostly old cases, so to say. And I was a bit struck by the fact that even ICRC somehow has the perception once somebody received a prosthetic limb, then the job is done, which I think is a very obvious mistake. And this is one thing that I also hope to find some guidance in the IMS where the ongoing nature of this work is highlighted. Can I just ask you to wrap up? And the next speaker will be Gary Tooms with the EOG Global Specialist of HI based in London. And I'm going to ask also Daniela to put on a screen the page 12 of the IMS on VA, the chapter on the 7.2 on the Mind Action Operators. But if you have a last poll, Locker, please go ahead. And meanwhile, I will ask the 70 participants to start putting questions and feedback in a chat box. Thank you. Sorry, you interrupted me at the right moment because I was about to finish up and say thank you. And let's move on with the next speaker. And thank you for this opportunity to add a little bit of my experiences. No, thank you very much. It's very encouraging that SD is already trying to implement the IMS on VA and has hired you to help them with that. So we're very pleased about that. Now the floor is you, Gary. Okay, thank you, Locker. And thank you for the introduction, Christelle. As a Mind Action Sector, it is really important to appreciate that the six elements comprising of victim assistance are and effectively should be part of broader sectors and broader efforts. We also accept and understand that the vast majority of victim assistance, including emergency and ongoing medical care, rehabilitation, psychological and social support, facilitation and access to education and economic inclusion is managed outside of the Mind Action Sector, although the sector does have an important multiplayer. IMS 1310 has been produced to define how the Mind Action Sector can do this. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank the VA working group and the IMS review board for getting it across the line and approved so promptly. It certainly has been challenging and simply finding a common language, as Lobca alluded to, between the Mind Action Sector and the broader sectors has been difficult. Let's take the term victim assistance, for example. Now outside of the Mind Action Sector, the term victim assistance is not used in the way that we in the sector understand it. Whilst many non-mind action actors are engaged in treating and supporting victims of EO, they do not call it victim assistance and tend to associate this term with the assistance for victims of gender-based violence or victims of other humanitarian rights violations. So again, that's quite important to understand. Some of these agencies or organisations that are providing health services or those that facilitate access to schools and work opportunities for explosive ordnance survivors and other persons with disabilities, so it is quite a big sector. IMS 1310, like when does it apply to us as a Mind Action Operator? Well, in the context where Mind Action Actors, whether you're an authority, a centre, an operator, a survival organisation or a donor that are implementing or supporting any of the five pillars of Mind Action and highlights the responsibility, the document 1310 highlights the responsibilities and the minimum standards are expected. Okay, as Christelle mentioned, I'm going to talk specifically about 7.2, the responsibilities of Mind Action Operators and as you can see on the slide it's been clearly stated out, I'll read through the first one just to give an idea, but it states that Mind Action Operators or their implementing partners undertaking victim assistance on their behalf shall, and that's very important, you shall inform the National Mind Action Centre and the affected communities of all your VA activities and available support. So even if you're not doing anything, you just let me to inform the National Authority, okay, this is what we're doing and this will come into section D, E, F and G. We need to ensure that any victim assistance activities you undertake comply with relevant national and or international standards and relevant health education or social economic policies. The third sort of task is to ensure that partner VA organisations are registered with the relevant ministry. Now that could be the Ministry of Health and if there's no national authority or governing body there may be other actors locally that are working. So again you need to make sure that they are competent, suitably trained and qualified. You need to collect age, sex and disability, desegregated data on people killed, critically injured and survivors in line with relevant data protection regulations and ensure relevant data is shared with the appropriate national entity whilst obviously ensuring that data ethics and protection principles are abided to. Now that's really important in some contexts so you need to be aware of that and factor that in. Support the dissemination of any directory of services to survivors, indirect victims and others with non-life-threatening needs for whom a lack of information is the main barrier for accessing available services. Identifying and facilitating access to or unavailable provide emergency medical transport of people critically injured by EO and any other person with life-threatening injuries to a nearby health care facility in an area where you are operating in. Finally you need to communicate the needs of the people that's been critically injured, survivors and indirect victims on the basis of available data to donors and actors in the sectors of which victim assistance is part in order to engage in a broader multi-sector support. Now these seven responsibilities outlined are a minimum standard and are to be implemented even when there is no VA earmarked funding within the mine action budget. So as an operator we need to factor these additional tasks or responsibilities in when we are conducting our mine action programming. Now that was very brief and very quick but that concludes my very short presentation. Do you want me to pass over to Sophie Nawell or do you want to open up for questions? Perhaps I can answer one of the questions that in the chat box and then we go to Sophie. If Sophie are you there are you ready to take over after a short intervention by me? Sophie, are you on the call with us? Yes, yeah, I'm here. From Erbil. Okay, thanks. So wonderful, Gary. Thanks for this introduction. It's been fascinating for Gary and I as we have started to put our head around what a standard operating procedure for victim assistance could look like, that it is quite complicated, perhaps even more complicated for an organization like HI which is multi-mandated. You know, we do our our clearance survey, ER activities, but then we also our so-called victim assistance operator work that I don't like to use but we provide, you know, services in prosthetics, orthotics, MHPSS, inclusive education, etc. So even for us having, you know, chaired the victim assistance effort group under the IMS review board, it has been really interesting to see how when we actually start to try to put down in practical terms what the implications are for our teams working on the ground on survey or land release or risk education, what this means that it raises a lot of questions. So as I said earlier, we don't have all the answers, but I'm going to try to answer one of the questions that was asked by Henry Bonin. Thanks, Henry, for your question. I'll just read it out. Henry asked if it could be considered that in some context where needs are not covered by health sector compared to the extent of the needs, i.e. there's greater needs than the health sector can meet, could the HMA sector and funds directly support health services as a part of VA role, and is this described in the IMS? So clearly the IMS is not going to give you any guidance on how you should deliver mental health and psychosocial support or deliver prosthetic legs, but the answer to your question is yes. We can of course ask for victim assistance activities to be funded as part of a broader mind action envelope. Humanity and inclusion regularly applies for funding for rehab, prosthetics, orthotics, mental health, psychosocial support as part of this broader mind action envelope. HI is a multi-mandated organization as I just said, so it's easy to do for us, but for other mind action operators who don't have that skill set necessarily under their roof, it is an option to engage in implementing partner to undertake these activities. The IMS in that sense gives you a couple of guidance, particularly A to C in Section 7.2, which would oblige you to make sure that the partner that you're engaging, for example to do MHPSS, it might be a survive organization that's going to provide peer-to-peer support, actually is registered with the relevant authority. So your task is to make sure that this is the case, so that you can be ensured that your implementing partner is delivering quality services. I hope that answers your question. Sophie, Sophie is a dear colleague, works with humanity and inclusion in Iraq, previously in South Sudan, elsewhere now in Iraq for a number of years. I asked her to speak briefly just about an experience of the HI program there to demonstrate how HI already as part of, and Sophie will speak to, our Explosive Ordnance Risk Education activities, if I got it right, have been complying with this IMS, so have been contributing to victim assistance through Explosive Ordnance Risk Education activities. Sophie, can you turn on your camera and the floor is yours. Hi there. Hi. Okay, hopefully you can hear me clearly. So I'm just going to talk a little bit on the practical terms to aside from our victim assistance programming, how we integrate some of these activities into our risk education programming. So some of the things that we've undertaken over the last couple of years has been to train all of our risk education staff in inclusion and disability awareness, so that we're speaking the same language, so that they are able to identify needs from the populations that they're working with and to understand the terminology and also to promote a more inclusive activity within the community. This also applies to our community liaison staff within the clearance teams. We've also trained them not only to identify people who might need services, but also to collect data on victims and accidents. We then can use this data to influence our risk education programming with regards to whom we should target, similarly for our clearance programming, but then also with regards to identifying the services that are needed for these populations. So we can collect and use the data through risk education teams. We've also trained all of our risk education staff to deliver Psychological First Aid, which is the first sort of recognised MHPSS approach for people who are having first contact with families. So recognising that they're maybe asking families about victims, so people who are injured or killed within their family, to be able to provide that immediate support to a family. So they feel equipped with the skills to do that before then advising the family about their rights, the services that are available, making referrals to those services and collecting the data. So in a nutshell, that's how we've kind of actively integrated it into our risk education programming. We then obviously link this with our more diverse programming on victim assistance and have created referral pathways between the different project teams. That's it. Thank you very much. I see there is a question coming from Keiko in the chat box. Keiko, do you want just to ask your questions, please? And maybe if you could say a little bit about your organisation, which does a lot on victim assistance. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much. My name is Keiko, working for a serial response on my action, especially focusing on victim assistance. And I really share lots of the point of view with Rubke. When we started, we really started doing everything in the darkness. There's no SOP written, there's no guidance on SOP because we are more heavily involved in the health sector. So we use our standard health indication, etc. But at the same time, for much component of the victim assistance, it's not only the health, inclusion, social awareness, and also against the social discrimination, etc. So we really needed a much sectoral approach and then comprehensive package. We built on over the years. Each year, we added one component, one component, tried to help the multiple package, but it was struggle for us to reach that point. So like my question was, would be useful to some kind of the example package, maybe depending on your context, your organization capacity, you may not be able to adjust or adapt everything. For some example, you can add it on to your ongoing activity. From our experience, some of the activity doesn't cost you much of the expertise, doesn't cost you much of the money, it's just on a bit of the planning from the beginning, and then it can create a huge impact and then difference to the individual life. So that's what I'm hoping. But Crystal has already answered, now you have a plan to develop SOP, which probably give us a bit more hands-on process for each organization to plan. But I very much appreciate, as someone working in a field, long time, to have a, you know, it's not compulsory, but something good set of the example, you can provide depending on your context. Thank you so much. Elke, would you like to add anything on the SOPs? Yeah, thank you, Kaiko. Thanks, Crystal. So it is now up to each operator, any organization, whether commercial or not for profit, who is touching mine action funds, will need to develop their own standard operating procedures. This will be something specifically developed by and for the organization, so adapted to their specific realities. National authorities in affected states will need to develop now a national mine action standard on victim assistance, again adapted to their specific context, but in line with the international mine action standard on the topic that we're presenting today. What I'm curious to hear from my colleagues working in other mine action organizations, so I don't have colleagues who are here for MAC or Halo and PA, DDG, DCA, if you have any experience already with undertaking any of those activities described in 7.2, or if you have any questions about them, of course most of those organizations were part of the expert victim assistance working group, but questions or comments or actual direct experiences like shared by Sophie and Lopke would be really helpful for us to hear. Is there anybody who would like to take the floor on either experiences or questions related to section 7.2? Claire, is water, is that what this means? Well yeah, from my side I can just say that I think I'm not the one to to take the lead on this because I'm not so much aware of the actual content. That's why on my side it was silence, but maybe some other people have different reasons to be silent. That's a very good point. I see that we have William Chamarie, the coordinator of the Global Protection Cluster who wants to take the floor, so great, but indeed we would like also to hear from some of the Mind Action Coordinators and the Mind Action Operators who have joined us. Don't be shy, we know it's complicated, it's challenging, share with us and ask questions. William, you have the floor. Thank you very much. I would like to confirm if you can hear me. Yes, we can hear you very well. Great, well with much less authority on the topic than the coordinators from the field, I wanted to first thank you for the excellent set of presentations, the excellent initiative of bringing us together on this important topic. I really like the simplicity of the message. I think it's an issue that has to be on the general radar of all donors and partners. Many of you have mentioned that this is a responsibility that touches on many other sectors and so on. I really welcome this conversation. My comment and question is what we're seeing during the pandemic now, or series of pandemics from Ebola to COVID-19 and the overall violent extremism environment is that access to certain parts of territories is really slowing down in many parts of the world. And for victims' assistance, I assume that much of the follow-up is naturally converging, as you mentioned, to assistance from within the community through people living in the communities and grassroots organizations to do this follow-up. It would be great to hear examples of how this kind of local response societies are being interacted with. Are there plans to responsabilize them more in an operational sense? Is there any step-up game to really benefit from this active energy that could do a lot if well supported and empowered? I will stop here and get back to you, Christelle and El. Elke, would you like to answer that? Yes, I will. I'll do my best. Thank you, William. Good to see you briefly. Just to clarify that this international mine action standard only applies for non-governmental organizations or not-for-profit and for commercial operators. So it really targets a very specific set of actors. That said, you touched on something which is related to access, particularly in areas with recent or even still ongoing conflict. Access is often a huge issue and we find that in many, many cases, the only people that are going into those areas, that are not from those areas, are the survey teams, are the community liaison people, are the risk education workers for H.I., our activities on victim assistance specifically, and on explosive risk education, are often trust-building opportunities to go into communities where access is really, really limited. And access is limited, particularly because of the explosive threat. Then the mine action operators that are going indoor are often the only ones that are in touch with people in those areas, hence all the more important for them to reach out, not only to understand how many items have contaminated X amount of square meters, but also to be the bridge that connects people in need. And that's why non-discrimination is so important. So survivors, other people in need, to the services that exist in here, I ask all of you to really think about services, not only formal services, but also informal services. Now what through victim assistance has been happening, which could be interesting to you, is that we have a lot of experience in H.I. to work directly with survivor organizations who are excellent providers of so-called peer-to-peer support. So it's an informal way of providing mental health outreach by one survivor who is further along on the coping recovery process to another, which from experiences from colleagues, I don't know if Ferros is here, for example, from the implementation support unit of the Minement Treaty, has literally saved the life of people who are ready to end their life. So mental health services often scars in the context in which we work. No other service providers going in other than my national operators have a responsibility to reach out to these organizations, see if they can support them to provide those necessary services. So it's very much in line with the localization agenda and with local capacity building. I mean, that's a very broad answer, William. Yeah, in that sense, just to cap this off as saying, this IMAZ really is for the mine action sector. There will be things that I think are relevant to take into other sectors, but it's not designed as such. And getting at this already was quite a challenge because we're asking a lot. There where nothing was asked before. Thanks, William. Thank you, Elka. I see that there is a question from Abigail. Abigail, I'm going to give you the floor in one minute. I also would like to invite people to read the comment from Henry on Victim Assistance in Syria. Abigail, you have the floor. Thank you. I just wanted to say at the end, it's not a question, Elka, but just to say, thank you so much. I can see that there are some people from Afghanistan in the meeting. And it just cast my mind back to something like 2010, when we started developing a dashboard for measuring the quality of implementers using UN funds. And we had no reference in which to decide whether people were doing VA well or badly or any kind of reference. So it's just really, really great that you and your team and everybody, many people on this call, spent so much time looking into this that really will have a big and really positive impact. And thank you for doing that, Elka. Big work. Thank you for leading on it. Thanks, Abigail. And UNL, would you like to ask questions or contribute? I can see that we'll now see you on the video. UNL program manager in Nigeria for UNMAS. The so-called coordinator of the my action center. No, I mean, this is really welcome. The only thing that we were capable to identify so far with the partners operating here in the Nigeria is that there is a gap. We have a gap and there is a gap. We just don't know how to address for different reasons. One is our lack of knowledge, expertise in the field, but I'm sure that the time I can help. But also because of the very stage, very moment we are with my action. For the time being, Nigerian authorities are still not elaborated a strategy to get back on track with the APNBC. The military are in the least in the region that is more affected by explosive. And just a point on what you say concerning access here. And I see exactly what you say, but here the problem of access is not because of explosive. The problem of access is because of people will kill you directly. So we cannot even access in the areas to do some mine action, some clearance, etc. So I don't have any other point except the feeling that we start from scratch. So now what I would love to work on with partners with national authorities is how that I must how all of these can be incorporated into different levels of approach, one being very, let's say, strategic or at the federal level, and one being very, very local. But also how to engage the donors, etc. So in a sense, we need to develop full strategy. Thank you very much. It just reminds me that IMAAS on VA is actually an excellent advocacy tool for dialogue with national authorities. And perhaps we can go to the rest of the presentation. I think that you had a slide to describe the role of the national authorities. Maybe we can bridge and go to that slide if you think it's useful. And I think you have probably an answer for it for you then. Please go ahead. Well, as Lena was speaking, and as I was still reflecting on William's question, I thought that it might be useful for you, Sophie, if you're still with us, to speak about the experience of the Community Safety Committees that you have been developing in Iraq. Would you mind because I think that's a really good example and a possible channel to, in a very small way, start to address some of the conflict dynamics to build the trust and ultimately to gain access to people that are in need. Are you still with us, Sophie? Yep, I'm still here. Would you please just maybe briefly highlight what we're doing? Yeah, sure. So in Iraq, as part of our risk education programming, we've started to establish community safety committees. And these are committees of local leaders, but we also try and ensure that their gender balance, so they have women representatives on them, also that we have some youth and also persons with disabilities or survivors. And these committees are then formed. We provide them with basic risk education measures, we provide them with the resources to deliver that, and we link them with our community focal points. And they're linked between our clearance teams and also our risk education. And then we also talk to them about what their community needs. So we help them start to put together a plan about what their community needs with regards to safe spaces. In two communities, we've built a playground that they're linked to and will take over the responsibility of managing. And also developing messages that they want to share within their communities, people that they think they want to target within their communities. And this might be with regards to safety, so risk education, but also identifying the needs that their communities have. So giving them the information and the resources to be able to direct people to services. And the idea is, as we start to develop this more, that we'll start to do some advocacy training with them and how to develop messages and how to start to lobby the different government groups and different bodies that are actually choosing which locations are cleared and helping to prioritize. So as we take this activity, so it's quite new in Iraq, we started to establish them around six months ago. And as we started to look at that, we've then started to look at the conflict dynamics and whether they want to play a role within their community on this as well. So we'll take that forward. I think that's it. Thanks. Elke, you want to say a few words on the role of national mine action authorities, perhaps? I could see that Daniela put the slide on the screen. Yes, thank you so much. So the IMAs highlights the roles and responsibilities of five different actors. We've only looked at one so far, namely those of operators. The actual first two up, the first two actors that are addressed in the IMAs is the National Mine Action Authority, and separately the National Mine Action Center. The other two actors are donors and survivor organizations. Initially, within the VA Expert Working Group, we talked about a sixth actor, which is the ministries that often are being delegated with the responsibility to coordinate victim assistance. So think about in Cambodia, it's shared by the Cambodia Mine Action Authority and I think it's the Ministry of Social Welfare, Women and Labor. Apologies if I don't say the name correctly. In some countries it is entirely, sorry, there's a truck passing by and entirely being carried by the Ministry for Social Welfare or MOLSA MD in the past as it was the case in Afghanistan. So we thought about creating a section on the sixth actor ministries. In the end it was decided that no, it would be confusing because these ministries have a mandate that goes beyond victim assistance. It would be too broad and instead it was decided that the section that covers National Mine Action Authorities, which you see up on the slide, would also address the responsibilities of a ministry who has been delegated with the responsibility to victim assistance, to coordinate victim assistance, sort of in addition to their normal terms of reference. So these would be additional tasks that the ministry would have to carry out. So what you can see here on these six bullet points are basically a slight elaboration of what we saw earlier, which is covered in section six of the IMAAS, related to making sure that the data that's collected on casualties is centralized somewhere and carried out into other broader national data collection efforts so that we don't see what happened in Uganda, happen in countries that are still having active mine action centers, but make sure that this casualty data actually gets carried into data collection mechanisms that will exist after the closure of the center. They also have the task to collect data on existing services if no other ministry is doing that in those areas where mine action operations are taking place. So clearly a national mine action authority is not going to be charged to map services in all of the country, but in those areas where the sector is working. Data needs to be collected through NTS, non-technical survey, not only for the purpose of understanding confirmed and suspect hazard areas, but also to understand what is the formal and informal system of services here so that we know what services are there, create a director of services that then should be carried in the pocket of every risk education worker, community liaison staff, clearance worker, so that if they come across somebody with a need they can at least eliminate the first barrier to accessing services which is a lack of knowledge. Of course, often much more is needed, but this is where it's the role of the national mine action authority to also make sure that they are communicating to the ministries that are providing the services about the needs that present so that they can do the outreach. That's why it's also the role of the national mine action operators or the mine action operators, just as explained by Gary, to reach out at a local level to service providers to make sure they can come in and provide the necessary services on the basis of the needs that we are presenting to them. Clearly the national mine action authority should as such be promoting multi-sector engagement. It's to go to the ministry of health to say you need emergency medical response here, to deal with the ministry that's responsible for availability of prosthetic and orthotic materials and say look you know we have X amount of new casualties here this year, we know on the base of their injury that X amount likely will need a new prosthetic leg knowing that children need two to three new legs every year. Say something about the data to the actors that actually can provide the services. The national mine action authority should also promote participation of victims in for example the whole priority setting process or in as you can see explosive ordinance risk education promoting exclusive hiring practices so that risk education efforts are being carried out in part by survivors and other persons with disabilities and ensure that these risk education sessions also integrate some very light disability inclusion messages to end hopefully or at least start informing the local population about the discriminating attitudes that that exist, the superstitions that that lead to people with disabilities including survivors being excluded from mainstream life. The section is quite elaborate in in the IMAs I think I will stop there. Yeah Gary go ahead. I just wanted to say that obviously the main focus of the Sectors VA response is going to be directed towards strengthening and the sustainability of the national effort to provide support to existing victims and as the more land is released under the mine action program we should see a noticeable reduction in the number of VO victims but it's the responsibility of the national mine action authority to collect that data that's being given to them by the mine action operators and then allow them to or to inform them how best to prioritize the task in order on where the mine action operators are going to be needed the most. Do you know what I mean? Yes yeah absolutely. Yep so coordinate and then target in risk education non-technical survey technical survey and clearance on the needs based on the data that's being provided by the mine action operators is really important in the prioritization process because obviously that will then hopefully we'll see a clear reduction in the number of victims that are being brought to the attention of our staff of the mine action operators and the national mine action authority. Thanks Gary I see that my director Emmanuel Sauvage noticed that most of the time national mine action authorities are composed of a number of inter ministerial bodies so that it should be easy to share information. The operative word is should in my experience only very few countries actually communicate data for the purpose of victim assistance I would say the Cambodian mine action authority is one of those but in many instances somehow a national mine action authority doesn't seem to charge itself with any responsibility on victim assistance. Yes casualty data is collected but it's to inform risk education targeting or priority setting but it's not viewed through the lens of what can we do with this to facilitate access to services how can we carry this information out of our little mine action database and share it with the actors that are ultimately responsible for delivering the services. Christelle I see Abby has her hand up but I don't know if it's there from before if there's a new question. And fortunately we have only two minutes left so we have to close. Elke would you be okay if we shared your PowerPoint presentation with everybody? Sure yeah I can share my notes as well. So we'll share that with all the mine action AOR colleagues and in addition we will share the recording of the webinar. I would like just to stress that a number of colleagues work in countries where the governments are not necessarily very interested in implementing victim assistance or where there's some major difficulty in you know agreeing on what the mine action sector should do in this country and so that adds a lot of complexity to what we are trying to do because we'd like them to coordinate among themselves but in the end we also need to coordinate with other humanitarian actors to provide this multi-sexual assistance you know pending a situation where maybe the government will take full leadership on that so I think we need to be also aware of that. I'll close by saying two things one I really hope that we've given you interest and the desire to read this IMS on victim assistance and to comply with it and secondly I wanted to say that as part of the humanitarian needs overview humanitarian response plan cycle which is going to start very soon I hope that the mine action AOR coordinator will convene a discussion with the operators to see what is the best way to take this forward and since we all know that funding is a problem I hope that they will be proposal in those humanitarian response plan to address the gap and once we have that we can go for instance and do advocacy with a central emergency response fund or other funds to really make sure that we plug this gap so maybe I'll give you the floor again Alka if you want to say any last thing before we close. I'm hard pressed to close because I see two people have their hands up but we can continue to discuss. Yeah I mean if you want to take the question from Zarin okay Zarin go ahead. Thank you very much and all colleagues and congratulations this very unique and good work which you accomplished it is highly appreciated. Just to let the colleagues and everyone it is a very good job which is done but it is not difficult to apply somehow. From up on our context in mine action authority we have developed AMS upon national mine action standard in 2012 with the same context a little bit similar and it was also applied at the national level about the ASOP all the implementing partner to the VA so they also cope and develop the ASOP it is not a typical job and looking to the synergies it is also a very good addupacy tool because when we had AMS it was internally at national level it was a little bit challenging for the addupacy for the resource mobilization but now with the global support widely and globally it was a very synergies with the many other legal documents conventions which is ratified by many states so it is a good tool to help us a lot for resource mobilization and also the colleagues might be agree with me there is very limited fund allocated resources allocated to the victim assistance so half the mine action authority itself and the mine action operator donors and those who are making addupacy for resource mobilization to improve this fund raising for the victim assistant as well. About the same fund it is very relevant and it is very applicable in our context all the colleagues they are using to develop the ASOP they are related by the mine action authority HIE it is one of the organization which is added in VA with the mine action authority so it is not a difficult job for the colleagues I think it is quite applicable and now we have very strong documents to advocate and to do fundraising thank you very much over. Elke would you like to react or can I close? Just one one message that I'd like to pass if anybody you know that joined this session what I would hope for you to walk away with is to appreciate now that it is possible and now necessary to contribute to victim assistance even if you're not getting any funding for victim assistance but you're doing your regular call them traditional mine action activities you can actually make a contribution to improve the quality of life by you know referral and improving access to services and getting the data to the actors that can actually do something so we have a role to play as the mine action sector it is not the entirety of victim assistance but we play a really important bridging function so I just hope that colleagues friends will walk away seeing us as a minimum standard this is the least I have to do if I work in a mine action or in an explosive ordinance affected area even if my program is doing nothing that's funded by mine action funding for victim assistance just as part of our risk education our community liaison we need to add a couple of tasks to the terms of reference of the different staff working in the field so that they play their role in facilitating access to services my last words thank you Christelle for facilitating Bruno for sharing um over to you Bruno you can give the closing remark if you'd like if not I say bye to everybody please oh you're muted Bruno unmute please yeah no no need to this was extremely useful and fruitful and I love the discussions and and I think you know I have a the preferential option for for colleagues who who tell us their experience from what you guys call field I call in country so thank you so much LK and all the colleagues and bravo for this webinar bye now thank you H.I. for leading the development of this IMS thank you a lot to the whole H.I. team and we'll continue to collaborate with you thanks you know bye everyone don't hesitate to reach out to me okay bye bye and thank you thanks goodbye