 Hello, my name is Matt Spurnal and I'm the Director of the Conflict Security and Development Research Group at King's College London. On the occasion of the International Day for MINE Awareness and Assistance in MINE Action on the 4th of April, we decided to organise a special seminar looking at the history, evolution and achievements of the MINE Action Programme in Afghanistan. We invited four distinguished panelists and I'd like briefly to introduce them to you. Our first speaker is Martin Barber who is a former Director of the United Nations MINE Action Programme and he is also an author of Blinded by Humanity, a story of the inside of the UN's humanitarian operations. Our second speaker is Mr Mohamed Shafiq Yasoufi who is the current Director of the Directorate of MINE Action Coordination in Afghanistan. He has been working with UN MINE Action since 2002 and in 2013 he was appointed to his current post. Our third speaker is Ms Sohaila Hashemi, she's a Communications and Advocacy Officer with the United Nations MINE Action Service in Afghanistan. She graduated from the American University of Afghanistan and joined UNMAS in 2019. Last but not least we are joined by Mr Daniel Bertoli who is Head of Programs at the Danish Demining Group in Afghanistan. Since 2018 he has been leading the MINE Action component of the Danish Refugee Council's work in Afghanistan. I will not say much more, simply to welcome you all I was reminded very firmly by Julia when we first talked about this that MINE Action of course is not just about MINE clearance. MINE clearance, the surveying and mapping and and demining is an important component but it's only one. The others of course are MINE risk reduction and assistance to victims, advocacy and important advocacy role in relation to the various treaty instruments we have and last but not least stockpile destruction. And the origins of this if you like edifice of MINE Action Service goes right back to Afghanistan and that's why it's so appropriate that we mark this special event by looking in detail at that history. So without further ado can I ask Martin to start us off by providing us with a historical context or a historical overview as it were perspective on the HMA in Afghanistan. Thank you very much indeed and thanks to all those who are taking part it's really great to be back amongst friends from Afghanistan. I want to take you back to the 15th of February 1989 that was the day on which the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan after 10 years of Soviet military presence in the country to return to the Soviet Union. At that time there were more than three million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan and more than three million Afghan refugees living in Iran and of course with the departure of the Soviet troops there was a tremendous hope and expectation that everybody would be able to return home. I was then working for the UN office coordinating humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and I was based in Pakistan and we knew that the towns and villages to which these Afghan refugees wanted to return were heavily contaminated with anti-personnel landmines. Now there was no previous experience anywhere in the world for the UN of managing what has come to be called a mine action program so we were starting completely from scratch and indeed we weren't absolutely sure that anybody would accept that mine clearance was a humanitarian task. Many people thought that it was a military task. So we started by organizing training for more than 10,000 Afghan volunteers in Pakistan refugees in the basic techniques of mine clearance locating and destroying landmines. We also started some basic mine awareness courses since become mine risk education and so we were preparing to support the return of Afghan refugees to their villages. It soon became clear that the training of Afghan volunteers was not sufficient so we identified initially five leading Afghan personalities and invited them each to manage a new Afghan NGO dedicated to one or other aspects of mine action. So we had one doing surveys, we had two doing mine clearance, we had one doing mine awareness and we had one doing survey and training and monitoring and they were soon joined by another organization working with mine detecting dogs. Now we started with two small teams of 30 men each working in the province of Qunar on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan and that went quite well and one day a colleague came to me and said Martin look what the ICRC is saying about our program and this was a press report that the International Committee of the Red Cross had said if the UN continues going so slowly with their mine clearance program in Afghanistan it will take 1,200 years to complete. So we were a bit shocked by this but we soon realized that actually it was a blessing in disguise because what it meant was that the ICRC accepted that mine clearance was a humanitarian activity and those who had said that the UN should not be doing mine clearance remained silent and this persuaded a number of governments, donor governments to provide funding for humanitarian mine action which they had been unwilling to do up until then and so very quickly the numbers expanded and within two or three years the mine action program was employing over 8,000 Afghans undertaking mainly mine clearance operations. Now how was it organized? So each of these five Afghan NGOs, their directors were joined by our United Nations Mine Action Program Manager as part of the management team of this operation and the operation came to be known as the Mine Action Program for Afghanistan MAPA MAPPA and there were three key principles that were established at the outset of the MAPPA. The first was that if it was going to be a humanitarian program then it needed to conform with the humanitarian principles of impartiality and neutrality. So we established a principle that if an area was to be cleared of mines all the parties to the conflict must agree that those mines were no longer in use. Everybody must agree that those mines could be removed because if one side to the conflict thought that those mines were still useful to their military objectives then if we removed them we were effectively going to be taking part in the conflict. The second principle was that all the organizations in the mine action program must adopt the same standard operating procedures and the same terms and conditions of employment of their staff. So that was developed, put together and monitored within the context of the management of the program under the UN program manager and the third was that in order to guarantee for donors that their money was being used effectively we had very close oversight of the financial and administrative operations of those five afghan NGOs and they were regularly audited and I have to say that some years the NGOs audit reports were better than the UN's own audit reports and so what can one conclude from that oh and I should just say also just briefly that there were two other key elements from the perspective of the afghan deminers. One was that we were able to provide insurance cover so that if a deminer was injured or lost their lives the family or the deminer would receive a payment from the insurance company. These were not huge payments but they were very important to the affected families and the second was that if there was an accident and a deminer was injured the UN aircraft would always go immediately to pick them up bring them to Peshawar to the hospital there for the best possible treatment and occasionally senior ambassadors were left stranded in cities in Afghanistan had to spend an extra night because their plane was diverted nobody ever complained. So what can we conclude I think we could conclude that if the three principles that I just elaborated were adopted and maintained then donors could with confidence support a program implemented by local organizations by afghan NGOs in this case with assurance that their money would be well spent. What happened subsequently of course was that and I'm not saying that this was by any means a bad thing it was it was very beneficial in many countries a number of new international NGOs were established to do mine action the different aspects of mine action that professor Badal indicated for the beginning and of course western donors tend to prefer to put their money into their own national organizations rather than support local organizations in a country like Afghanistan. So when mine action when my action programs began in Cambodia and Mozambique and Angola most of the operations there were managed by international NGOs rather than by local organizations. I should say just in conclusion that when we started in Afghanistan in 1990 the one international NGO that was already there and also just set up was the Halo Trust and they maintained their operations they coordinated their activities with the afghan groups and the UN program but they maintained their independent operation in the Somali plain north of Kabul and in Puli Kumri and as I understand now their operations have grown quite substantially but for the first few years the program was dominated by afghan NGOs so I hope that gives you a little bit of an introductory context of the mine action program in Afghanistan back to you Matt. Thank you so much Martin and thank you also for sticking admirably to the to the time let's move straight on to Shafiqi Sufi please. Can I have a feedback from Yulia? Can you see my power point? Yeah it's perfect I can see a lot of questions. Okay thank you very much distinguished colleagues ladies and gentlemen first of all I would like to thank the Kengis College London Department of Forest Studies for inviting myself to provide some information about the achievements and also the level of contamination in Afghanistan and I'm very happy to see or to hear that the college is celebrating the 4th of April the international day for mine action. Mr. Martin Barber he explained about the history of mine action program of Afghanistan I do not want to touch too much on the history I will talk more about the current status of a humanitarian mine action program in Afghanistan a little bit the history of conflict very quickly the fighting started in Afghanistan in 1979 with the invasion of former Soviet Union troops before that nobody even knew about the mines fighting continued lots of areas and Afghanistan contaminated by land mines and after Soviet Union withdrawal the Soviet backed regime they also continued fighting with Mojahedin again areas contaminated during the internal conflict in 1992 the scale of problem get bigger and bigger during the Taliban time there was fighting between the Taliban and Northern Alliance again areas of Afghanistan contaminated by land mines and explosive remnants of war and since 2001 with the presence of international troops in Afghanistan and their fight against terrorism in Afghanistan areas are contaminated either by ERW or by homemade mines which we call it victim of prejudice those types of mine that we are gathering information about the mine action program of Afghanistan as Mr. Martin also indicated established in 1989 currently 40 last organizations are working in this program some of them are non-for-profit organizations are some of them are commercial demining firms currently about 6 000 demining personnel are working under this program if we compare it with 2011 which the mine action program of Afghanistan receiving the peak funding nowadays 57 percent reduction has happened with the mine action one power this is our vision I put this picture about Afghanistan this is a famous place in center of Afghanistan I think there was the tallest Buddha statue here in March 2001 the Taliban when they were rolling Afghanistan they destroyed this statue just the hole is left the remains the statue and some other smaller statues have been demolished here this is the map which showing the status of contamination all those red dots representing a minefield and those areas which are colored green they are the districts which have been entirely clear and handed over to the beneficiaries so the green districts are totally clear since the beginning of mappa 140 districts and 3 140 communities cleared entirely as a result over 20 million different types of explosive ordinance including land mines explosive remnants of all cluster munitions and victim operated bodies have been destroyed parallel to the mining operations rescue education have been provided to vulnerable people and their communities using different approaches direct sessions through media or through UNHCR transitional centers we also have some progress regarding victim assistance services provided to 4400 000 people by mappa other ministries are also providing support to victims but this is specifically attributed to mappa activities unfortunately civilian casualties as a result of accident related to land mines and explosive remnants of all and also victim operated bodies this is very high in Afghanistan unfortunately Afghanistan according to the land mine monitor has the highest number of civilian casualties globally within the countries affected by land mines in New York about 60 percent of civilian casualties are attributed to accidents of victim operated bodies we also use the term improvised mines or antipersonal mines of improvised nature it is homemade used by non-state actors by the Taliban and also by the IS 39 percent more than 39 percent of civilian casualties attributed to explosive remnants of all so see that the problem of land mine in New York W is getting increased day by day since 2001 fighting has been continuing in Afghanistan wherever fights happen there are some explosive coordinates remain unexploded so it caused threats and also harm to civilians only one percent of the civilian casualties attributed to the industrial mine which are belonging to the conflict 2001 this is one picture from a family as a result of e or w accidents seven children of the same family we have lost either two legs or one legs this is an indication a small example of problem in Afghanistan the nature of contamination in Afghanistan it is challenging because there is not records of mines we are these they are used most of the time it is used by different different parties it is used randomly some areas are contaminated by minimum metal contents mine which is difficult for detecting some areas dipped off mine is higher and also causing a challenge ahead of the mining organizations to detect and discover it is used in discriminatory unfortunately nowadays the victim operated ideas or the weapon of choice by anti-government elements in Afghanistan they can they put it everywhere however they are putting it against military convoy or against military personnel but unintended target of such devices little devices sometimes it is civilians which are traveling from one location to another by car or by any other transportation means the Taliban and anti-government elements they are using different techniques there are some pictures sometimes they are connecting it with with batteries sometimes they are putting an anti-personnel mine on top of a big homemade or IED so it is always causing problem on local people we have now different types of the mining tools we have manual demining tools which are using detector mine detection docs mechanical in terms of risk education as I mentioned earlier we do risk education through direct sessions as well media and other other means DMACC I am the director of DMACC DMACC is a directorate of the national disaster management authority we are the regulatory body for humanitarian mine action program in Afghanistan what we are doing is listed here we are actually program manager of the humanitarian mine action in Afghanistan we also do coordination resource mobilization advocacy and communication information management we also do quality management and planning and priority setting so we had a plan to complete Afghanistan by 2023 based on the article 5 of the auto convention but due to many reasons including shortage of funding insecurity we are not going to achieve that by March 2023 we are preparing another extension request that will we will request another seven-year extension for our deadline in total there will be 470 square kilometer area contaminated will be left unclear by March 2023 and we are going to continue it until 2030 we are also going to publish the next the new strategy mine action strategy plan the the strategy plan which was expired by end of March 2021 it had four strategy goals up up to 90 percent we achieved those objectives with this previous strategy the new strategy one goal is added we have five strategy goals life-saving victim assistance sustainable development goals you know that mine action is a prerequisite for implementation of development projects we considered one goal how mine action can support implementation of development projects at national level agenda and diversity ministering advocacy and coordination for areas of focus for the future we have put some of them here some of the most important lands in terms of capacity building previously a humanitarian mine action program didn't clear those areas which are contaminated by victim operating ids it was it was always considered that it is a military business or it is a military task ministry of interior ministry of defense they have they also have their a demining units but taking into consideration the high number of student casualties that we are observing we tried to convince we tried to advocate for engaging a humanitarian demining capacity or survey and clearance of one type of ids which is pressure palette ids or victim operated ids because based on the definition of the Ottawa convention it is considered anti-personnel mine we are also going to do a nationwide survey to identify the scale of contamination after 2001 which mainly include victim operated ids and explosive remnants of war you will do the clearance of victim operated ids we are also going to we are trying we have already started to identify synergies get engaged with other sectors to use their capacities for for clearance or survey of survey of areas from mines and ERW we have been in contact with ministry of defense and interior protocol five of the CCW conventional weapons it oblige it oblige all parties in conflict to clear explosive ordinance from the fighting zones so if we can have the ministry of defense and ministry of interior to effectively clear the fighting zones there will be some support and will release some some pressure from the shoulder of the MAPA we also trying to identify and search for new technologies the funding is getting declined day by day we want to cover some of those financial gap by introduction of new technologies that can make the work of demining more efficient we also have been engaged I mean in the past there were two times demining and demining organizations recruited ex-combatants so there is peace negotiation ongoing in Istanbul there will be another peace negotiation between the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan we have submitted a project proposals there is about 30% of the Afghan territory which is contaminated by demining teams cannot do because of insecurity as soon as the peace is established we hope that we can access those areas and we are hoping that some countries will fund that proposal that we have already submitted to them there are a couple of challenges that have been always impeding delivery of mine action services ongoing conflicts it is adding to the existing problem areas already contaminated or new areas are contaminated by land mines and also by ERW and some areas access to contaminated areas is difficult non-state parties demand illegal taxation from implementing partners the big problem nowadays in Afghanistan is victim operated OEDs the anti-government elements place it anywhere they wish a spot ERW is another problem sometimes children picking them playing with them are due to poverty they collect piece of metals sometimes they do not distinguish between dangerous and safe items however rest education is an ongoing process parallel to demining there are some pictures of impact of victim operated OEDs which has went off on vehicles around supporting local people in one accident we remember that 34 civilians killed on the way from Herod to Tandahar so this is actually a big challenge nowadays in Afghanistan and thank you so much I hope I was able to stick with the time 10 minutes thank you very much for a wonderful clear overview of the of the challenges you are you are still facing thank you so much let's move straight on to to Sohala and and people will no doubt be writing down their their questions Sohala hello everyone thank you for having me in this wonderful event and thank you for Mr. Martin and Mohammad Shafiq for the wonderful presentation so I'm going to start my presentation we're talking about the current rule of UN mass in Afghanistan so let me share my screen okay um so as you might all know that in 2018 a UN mass transited and delegated all leading roles of a mine action program of Afghanistan to the DMACC the director of mine action coordination office and since then UN mass role is mainly the technical and financial assistance to to the DMACC as well as the implementing partners which are the local and international NGOs in Afghanistan in the MAPA in order to ensure that the mine action sector in Afghanistan is coordinated effectively here I have listed the major activities areas that we do for example the strategic planning the advocacy activities that UN mass do and the resource mobilization and technical advisory as well as the funds management so in order to understand the role of UN mass in mine action program better here I can show you this diagram that shows the relationship between the UN mass and the national director which is DMACC as here you can see and here are the mutual arrows which shows our mutual relationship we assisted DMACC in terms of capacity building technical assistance in developing the annual and national strategies and we do many shared advocacy works at the same time in our activities we need the DMACC for example DMACC owns the EMSMA which is the data center and you might know that in mine action the management of data is extremely important so and currently DMACC has the role of managing the data and to re-receive our data from DMACC for our advocacy activities and then here you see that DMACC has the leading role on the MAPA in the below this is the logo of mine action program of Afghanistan and as well as on the other side we have our relationship with the implementing partners we support them in terms of capacity building as well as some direct grants and projects to them here are some examples of our recent supports and activities in Afghanistan first thing is the abundance improvised mine AIM of Afghanistan mine action strategy which is called AIM MS this strategy was developed in coordination with DMACC and the technical assistance of assistance of UN mass in order to ensure the AIM projects are coordinated effectively effectively based on this strategy which helps DMACC and other national authorities in prioritization and equality control of AIM areas and AIM projects I need to mention that this standard is one of its first kinds among the other countries who have active mine action programs the second one is the AIM clearance training this training was in 2020 last year and it was also one of its first training in the country as you might know the rate of AIM casualties has really increased in Afghanistan so we really saw the need to organize this training and build the capacity of the local organization in mine action program to be able to survey and at the same time clear the AIM combinations in Afghanistan the third one the third example is the access negotiations you might know that in mine and clearance programs community liaison is extremely important it is very important to be to have good relationship with the local communities of the beneficiary or the contaminated areas for this purpose UN mass provided specialized and well-trained access negotiation officers for the implementing partners or the local organizations who do the clearance projects in the field we also provide updated access negotiation skills and workshops to ensure the quality of their work the next one is the national disability strategy as you might know the one of the major pillars of UN mass is victim assistance and the mines and explosive victims in Afghanistan in order to ensure the social inclusion and well-being of these category of people UN mass has hired specialist inclusion and access specialist in order to work with the related national authorities and government of Afghanistan to develop a new national disability strategy and currently it's under process of finalizing and one of the last examples I want to mention is the gender mainstreaming one of the major priorities of UN mass in Afghanistan is to enhance the gender equality in mine action of program of Afghanistan and one of the most recent activities that we had is was providing a national gender focal points for all the local implementing partners and local organizations in my next sector of Afghanistan and train them in order to enhance the gender equality in the this sector and now I want to focus on the one of the best or the most significant achievements of a mine action program of Afghanistan which is having the first female deminers in the history of Afghanistan I need to mention that this project of recruiting female deminers started in 2018 about 18 women from Bamiyan province of Afghanistan was recruited trained to become deminers and out of them 14 of them were actually started their work through a project implemented by the Danish demining group in 2018 as a result of this project more than 55,000 square meters was cleared from the land mines in Bamiyan which was a big achievement in the history of Afghanistan after that project in 2019 the second stage of clearance started which 16 female minors started working in this project of clearing three hazardous areas which compromise the 139,000 square meters of the minefields and 314,000 of battlefields in Bamiyan it was released through a clearance and survey and to give you more updates about the the female deminers of Afghanistan currently several of them are working on and this project started in 2020 and currently still it is going on in 2021. Now let me get your attention on a recent PERCEP 21 which is on the Afghanistan female deminers per section study it is a joint work of GICHD, Danish Refugee Council, Danish Demining Group, DMACC and also UNMAS. This perception study was based on the quantitative questions from baseline which was before or at the start of the 2019 clearance project that I mentioned and the end line which was at the end of the project in 2019 and in this research the average of respondents was from both baseline and end line was 19-2 respondents and we selected or the sample of respondents was very specific it was the female deminers themselves the male team members of the female deminers who worked with the female deminers the family members of the female deminers and the community members who live in neighborhood of the female deminers in the Bamiyan. I need to mention all the all our respondents because our focus was in the Bamiyan province and all the respondents was from or living in the Bamiyan and the districts around it. This perception study it focused on three themes and three perceptions the first one was the perception of female deminers and how they see themselves how they feel or what is their perception towards their own job second was the resource management in the family how it changed their role in the family from financially or other aspects as well as the decision making or their role and their situation in their local communities in the society. So we came up with very interesting findings and you can read the whole findings in the perception study which is available for public in the internet however here I am going to share with you very few of them. One of the major ones was that after the project that women have the strength and the ability to work as a deminers and comparing to the start of the project there was an increase in the confidence of the ability of women working as deminers and the other hand there was a decrease in the belief among female deminers that demining is not a dangerous job from 40 percent into the 14 percent in the end line so in other words before the projects the female deminers were thinking that it's not really a dangerous job but after experiencing it majority of them believe that demining is a dangerous job for a woman and the other trend that we we find out was that comparing to men more women were concerned about this job and more women were thinking that demining is a dangerous job for women comparing to the men's perspective. The next finding that I would like to mention is that among the family members of the female deminers that were interviewed 100 percent of them believe that women are able to be deminers they are strong enough to be deminers comparing to the before or the baseline survey before the project which was among men there was 78 percent and the female family members 67 percent before the start of projects so here you can see an increase in the belief and confidence of the family members and relatives about the capacity of women working in male dominated jobs and male dominated working area and the next finding is that about the efficiency or work productivity of the female deminers the percentage of men who strongly agree that female deminers are less efficient than the male colleagues dropped from 13 percent to zero person by end of the project this is a very interesting finding so in other words I can say before the project men were thinking that having female colleagues as deminers is going to be a trouble for them or it's not as efficient as having male deminers however after accomplishment objective has changed and they realize that women can be as productive as men in the demining field I need to mention that period to this is that the Danish demining group has also haven't have done a study above the productivity rate and they also realized that are no different than the male deminers in the field which is a very interesting finding so if you are interested to read more about this study you can search it in the google or find it in a un mass website I think it has been published in the websites of our other partners who has a part in this study I need to mention although we have that and very specified and some of the findings might need for further research for your nearest disagreed or strongly disagreed more than female colleagues that demining is too dangerous for a woman by end of the project or why women were thinking that demining is more dangerous comparing to men and another why female community members who either agreed or strongly disagreed that demining is not appropriate for women increased during the data collection so there are some questions and some trends that we found that and need there is a need for further research and the further studies for this topic so this was all from me if you have a question please do not hesitate to ask in the Q and QA section thank you so much thank you thank you very much Sahila that's very very thorough overview we'll go straight on to Daniel so Daniel go ahead thanks very much ma'am and again good afternoon to everyone I'll just bring up my presentation okay good afternoon everyone it's a real honor for myself and for DRC to be included on this panel it's a real honor for us and I'll move ahead from the NGO perspective I think the other panelists have really given a good overview of the situation both in the past the current and and I can provide some of the the implementation side of things as well so in terms of DRC also known as the Danish demining group we've we've been on the ground in Afghanistan since 1999 so we're in fact one of the younger operators we conduct the full package of mine action activities including survey clearance risk education and generally we work on what has been defined as pre 2001 legacy contamination so as what was mentioned so that's Soviet Afghan war and the the 90s civil war contamination so that's legacy factory made mines but we've also been clearing a lot of UXO post 2001 up until this point we haven't so much engaged on the abandoned improvised mine otherwise known as victim operated IEDs but I'll get on to that in a moment about what our position is on that we're given given the experience of the the program and the map for more generally our engagement in our program is 99 afghan led and including the senior management and basically we put a strong emphasis on integration gender mainstreaming innovation quality partnerships and of course safety so that's our that's our approach and our strategic thinking behind our role in Afghanistan as a as an international NGO so some of our achievements over the last 20 years as Mr. Hyler explained that there was the female demining project that we were we were fortunate to implement and we're very proud of it a decade ago I think a lot of people would have said that that was something that was highly unlikely to happen and we managed it and then followed it up with with two further projects so I think this really reflects a kind of broader trend in mine action sector and the greater involvement in of women throughout the sector including technical roles and that's something that we're looking at continuing to develop going forward specific to DRC but also with other implementing partners we are very much engaged in taking forward and some of the some of the stuff we've done in the past is cross sectoral humanitarian and development work so that examples of that could be cash for work to facilitate usage of of cleared land after it's been inactive for many years it could be a risk education emergency distribution points that are close to areas of contamination and minefields it could also be vocational training for the deminers themselves so that they after the land is cleared that they can find possible career opportunities or for the the people working on the land so that they can best put that land into use so we've delivered in-house animal husbandry training vocational training English language training for example the deminers a whole broad package of different interventions that really link and cut across the whole humanitarian and development sector so as Mr Shafiq referenced mine action is often a prerequisite for other interventions so we we really do take it in that direction and our activities are driven by level of impact and the casualty rates that's really what defines all MAPA IPs prioritization obviously there's many thousands of meters squared remaining to be cleared and it's important that that's prioritized in in a manner that's appropriate that that achieves the most impact over the over time so so we work closely with the both the DMACC and the the different authorities as well as the the communities in which we work we recruit heavily from the local communities to ensure that we benefit from local knowledge and we we develop strong relationships with them and then on top of that the local communities cannot can prioritize the tasking situation in their own community so for example if there's a water well that might need to be demined then that that can be demined first and we can we can work on that basis I mean I think it's been really exciting and interesting for me to hear from the other speakers about the uniqueness of the MAPA and I think it really is a unique mine action program amongst other countries given given the experience that's present in it that a number of personnel have have been working in it for 2015 for 25 years and there's a real sense of each organization having that unique expertise and added value and there's some real meaningful cooperation and coordination taking place across the sector it's often referenced as the the MAPA family with the different NGOs and NGOs working very closely together across the country so going back to my point on integrated programming I think this is a pretty interesting example of of a project we've been implementing as as DRCDG since late 2018 so basically the backstory of this is that when we were delivering a mine risk education in the northern part of Afghanistan near the city of the Masar Sharif we discovered a village where the villagers owing to lack of resources but also building materials had built their houses using BM 21 rockets to basically reinforce the the structure of the house so so rather than using steel girders or wooden beams the villagers were close to this this depot that had exploded in the mid 90s kicking out of the kicking out all of these rockets and they they picked them up and built them into their houses as door and window lintels and ceilings and floors reinforcement of walls so I think that the challenge was when we went to the village the villagers quite rightly said look we're not going to allow you to remove these rockets and damage our houses without some kind of compensation or rebuilding the house and we couldn't remove the rockets safely without without doing without some kind of damage so what we did was we found two two different very different sources of funding one for the rocket removal which went ahead and one for the reconstruction and DRC did that in-house with some expertise in terms of civil engineering and cash grants expertise to ensure that the work was done to in line with the expectations of the villagers but was also safe and then then remove the rockets the project's continuing to go on as over time more and more villagers have come forward in different parts of the in different parts of the district as well and we're expecting over a thousand rockets to be removed and over a hundred houses to be rebuilt but I think basically the the kind of case study demonstrates that the mine action has a broad range of involvement in different humanitarian interventions and it doesn't necessarily fit the the classic image of a deminer in a field so there's a lot of linkages that we meet to make happen and it's an opportunity and a trend that's been going on in the last 10 or so years not only in Afghanistan but across the sector so some of the trends and opportunities going forward we're going to continue to look at integration with other sectors there are obviously a lot of competing needs not only in Afghanistan but across the sector across other countries where mine action is taking place and linking and makes makes perfect sense the key challenge currently in Afghanistan is humanitarian is humanitarian access as some of the other panelists mentioned it's you can kind of break that down into into two different ways access access denial basically through active conflict where the risk is unacceptable for myself and my colleagues to to work in and then also access denial through armed opposition groups demanding taxation or registration in a kind of quasi state manner that the NGOs and INGO simply can't comply with so I think link to link to what Mr Shafiq was saying one of the kind of key things on the humanitarian communities radars these negotiations taking place in Doha and also in Moscow and Istanbul with the Taliban and that the outcome of those will everyone is obviously watching very closely and will likely have a significant impact on the way that operations mine action operations but generally the humanitarian community works going forward I think it's interesting to note that all IPs work throughout the Taliban regime from 96 to 2001 including DRC who obtained their their initial registration during that time so whatever the outcome will be here to deliver and to continue to clear and mine action is a little bit more insulated due to a perceived level of neutrality of course as an organization DRC and other NGO working NGOs working in the community are committed to the humanitarian principles including neutrality and humanity independence and impartiality but there will be opportunities going forward for different actors and including a possible involvement of mine action in DDR processes that might come down along the line and also abandon improvised mine clearance engagement resulting from the peace in certain areas that's it from me so thank you very much once again for the opportunity I pass it back to Max thank you so much for another excellent and fascinating presentation it's been very very rich and very interesting and I'm going to abuse the privilege of chairing by asking two questions and then opening up for other comments and I want to take advantage of the fact that we do have a a long history here and a kind of historical perspective can be adopted the questions are slightly different and I and invite anyone to to perhaps address them the first goes back to something you mentioned Shafiq I am very interested in the the points you made about technological developments I mean technology can be an enemy technology can be a friend and listening to you particularly when you talked about the major concern now being improvised explosive devices I assume that technology has moved on this front that may have made things more challenging and more difficult for you on the other hand there are new technologies which I said which you mentioned there wasn't enough funding for I mean do you what kind of developments do you see going forward here can can technological developments make you know facilitate me your job easier or are the trends such that it's making it difficult as you know in other aspects of warfare now there is much focus on drones for example which introduces a whole new dimension to warfare and I'm curious what you think of the how the technology has moved over time and Martin might also and Daniel of course might also have views on that the other question is perhaps very difficult to answer it's in the nature of the question as a person that really has to do with the what you might call the advocacy side of your work and particularly your efforts to monitor the status of treaty implementation and what I'm curious about is whether you can in any way assess the significance and importance of the Ottawa Treaty for the kind of work that you are doing I mean that treaty has many aspects to it one of which of course is production and transfer of anti-personnel minds I think you mentioned that improvised explosive devices come in under the treaty but I'm curious whether the the significance of the treaty is mostly to be felt that what you might call the normative side of it that there's an understanding that anti-personnel minds is illegal and shouldn't be used whether you've also seen another effect of the Ottawa Treaty that is a difficult like all international treaties it's a very difficult question to answer but I'm curious what your sense on the ground is of the significance of that treaty I don't know who wants to start whether Martin or or or Shafiq wanted to comment on either one of those two questions well I think we want to hear from Shafiq a very brief word on technology because I'm absolutely not up to date with the most modern technology but just to say that when we were starting the program all kinds of people would come up with fantastic ideas about wonderful technologies which were going to solve our problems like massively powerful water hoses until we pointed out that shortages of water and electricity might make these a little impractical so we were more frequently presented with technology which wasn't going to work than with a technology that did on on the treaty I do think that the treaty has had a phenomenal impact on the understanding about landmines and some of you may yesterday have been listening to Heidi Kuhn from Roots of Peace in another King's College webinar who was inspired to generate support from California winemakers by the passage of the Ottawa Treaty in 1997 and my one doubt about the about the Ottawa Treaty has always been article five which requires all areas to be cleared because it has always seemed to me that governments should be able to decide that some areas there simply isn't a benefit to clearing them because it'll be more costly and dangerous to clear them than to leave them marked and so on but I always lost this argument when having it with the lawyers and maybe they were right and and I was wrong but I do think that the the obligation to clear every single landmine is is is onerous and in some countries may not be practical thank you very much Shafiq the first question was more relevant to Afghanistan I think personally that in mine action sector in terms of technology we didn't progress very well not only in case of Afghanistan but globally there are clear reasons for that as far as I remember working more than 24 four years with the program we have been using three types of the mining tool mechanical manual and dog so manual they are using a metal detector the survey currently is mainly relying on information gathered from local people local people can be it can be quantitative but maybe less qualitative because it is based on the level of information that informants or inter interviewees provide to survey teams for definition of for defining the exact boundary of the hazardous areas there is always lack of efficiency maybe in Afghanistan we have spotted that and we are trying to identify some sort of solutions that can scan the ground technology can see 100 meters of the ground depth but there should be some sort of a scanning or aerial system that can scan and identify those areas where mines are existing with some time operators are clearing big areas but no mines or less number of mines are found there so there is elements of cost and time both are very important there are about 300 square kilometers contaminated by anti-vehicle mines in all areas or flatlands it is a priority for us but we cannot clear that until we we or we do not clear that until we identify a best survey solution and clearance solution for that the victim operated IDs that is another challenge it is very scattered you can expect anywhere so this is big mass I mean there are containers there is different types of staff that non-state non-state actors use so it should be easy to identify a solution for that to better make use of them this is my understanding I agree with Mr. Martin Barber the convention has a very big impact because many countries those who are in a position to donate or to fund the low-income countries like Afghanistan some of them they are already member of the convention so they feel some sort of I mean responsibility to support other countries because there is a provision within the auto authority which is promoting the cooperation and assistance thank you so much thank you very much Daniel did you want to comment on any of that yes yeah I agree to an extent that we're not really where we should be perhaps in terms of embracing technology I think we're a little bit behind the curve other that we have made significant process progress in terms of efficiency and economy over the last 20 or so years in terms of releasing land more quickly and with greater certainty a lot of the detectors we now use are far more advanced than we would have used 20 or 30 years ago and much safer for the deminer as well they're employing ground penetrating radar and also looking at detectors that can detect minimum metal mines as well so they have been technological advances and I have seen use of drones in other programs across the world but yeah there's still some way to go but in summary there have been significant gains in terms of reducing the dollar per square meter in the last 20 years I think it's somewhere hovering around 80 cents a square meter currently 60 cents a square meter whereas 20 or 30 years ago you might have been upwards of two or three dollars a square meter so there have been contributions in that sense from technology thank you very much we have a question from Enrique Garbino and maybe you introduce yourself Enrique as well with your own background I think you have a connection to the Swedish demining service um hey I hope you can hear me well actually I don't have a connection with the Swedish demining center my background is actually as a new d officer in the Brazilian army and also as a weapon contamination delegate with the rcrc in Ukraine but currently I am a phd student at the Swedish defense university and that's the link with Sweden I'm really interested in the nexus between mine action and and ddr programs it was mentioned by at least two of the panelists and thanks a lot for the great presentations and discussions really really insightful and I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit more on this on this nexus between mine action and ddr based on the on the experience in the early 2000s in Afghanistan with the ex-mejahedin fighters and also the prospects of the current peace process and if there's something envisaged renewal of this program somehow as I see it there are benefits and also some kind of a challenges to overcome thank you thank you very much Shafiq do you want to start with that if you allow me yes very briefly so as a measure of confidence building I think mine action has played a role in terms of peace and integration of ex-cambitance during the disarmament demobilization and reintegration program which we call the ddr sometime 2002 2004 and there were many ex-cambitance which they laid their weapons down they were absorbed by the mining organizations because mine action is not a very complicated field it needs a couple of month training so in terms of provision of training and mobilization it is easier and it is also a little bit has similarity with military so those ex-cambitant they prefer to to come in terms of reintegration into the society they prefer to be within or to work with mine action compared to other vocational training like tailoring like carpentry something so the experience has shown that mine action was successful training were provided for them during the training of demining there were some other vocational training also provided for them if they finish with mine action sometime then they can do their their life with other vocational experience they had and we look forward to the result of peace negotiation first there is about 30 percent of the contaminated areas about if you can say about about 400 square kilometers areas which have priorities but cannot be accessed because of insecurity at that time we can access the air and there are lots of Taliban that can be can be recruited by the mining organizations thank you very much um can i uh turn to carolina i think you had a question touches on the new on the question of neutrality are you able to unmute carolina hi yes good afternoon no problem thank you i'm i'm a master's student from the graduate institute in Geneva and my specialization is actually on engaging with non-state armed groups and i'm colombian and also given by the colombian experience i would like to know how is the engagement with the non-state armed groups to identify the areas that need to be clear or is it always through a governmental institution because probably it also contains quite a lot of negotiation and previous work with non-state armed groups before actually doing the mine action programs and putting them into execution thank you thank you very much very interesting question of how you engage with non-state armed group who wants to start i suppose all of you may have views on that Daniel or Shafiq just very quickly then maybe Daniel which is actually they are implementing the mining activities in Afghanistan so fortunately uh taking into consideration then your neutral nature of humanitarian mine action in Afghanistan they can access uh every places and if there isn't any life fighting on doing because mine action has been working through different regimes during the mojahedin that in the Taliban now during the new administration and here are cases where uh the mining organizations are working but it is not under control of the government or it is an area which is not known whether it is controlled by government or anti-government elements but the mining teams can go because they are neutral and they have a good fame they have a good reputation secondly there are some some institutions like Afghan ban landmine campaign that they can sometimes negotiate with anti-government elements through and through communities and also direct negotiation with them united nations maybe on mass can comment on that they also have a channel that can can get the access or negotiate for for clearance of those areas which are which are located under the control of them Daniel did you want to add to that you've been dealing with them in the in the field yes yeah um so so this is quite a hot topic right now in Afghanistan I think globally about working in non-state act areas so but but certainly when we conduct in line with the humanitarian principles we we go where the we're driven by the casualty rates so and the the priority of an impact of those locations so we don't as long as it's safe to go to those locations and the risk is acceptable then we will go in terms of gathering information of course we'll we'll try and speak to to all actors present in that area we're not going to exclude uh voices but the we do need to ensure our colleagues are safe but as Mr Shafiq mentioned uh mine action in Afghanistan is is well accepted by all parties to the conflict so really where it's possible to gain access we we we definitely will work and we we will ensure that we speak to everyone as well so um it but the the central database does lie with the with the DMACC and information that we gather is then reported and compiled by the DMACC as well so we we gather that information from the field and then pass it to the DMACC for for tasking the operators thank you very much I wonder whether if either Martin or Sahel I want to add anything to the sorry Matt we have Mohamed Vakil okay who's the deputy director of the UNMOS and let me yeah I think you're on yet okay go ahead go ahead thank you and Julian to everyone so it is an interesting question I would like to add that Afghanistan has a 10 years operation plan based on the Ottawa treaty that plan covers all Afghanistan so there is no differences where the project should be implemented and that plan is based on a number of criterias prioritized and uh provided the direction for the induce to implement project uh I just give an example 2019 2020 we implemented a project it was mainly actually in the Taliban areas but partly on the government control areas so as stated earlier the my natural program of Afghanistan is maintaining the humanitarian principles which helped us to to run that project quite successfully establish committees from the areas under the government control establish people or committees from the communities under the Taliban so they that become like a confidence building measure between different parties it was a big project over 500 deminers and it was successfully implemented as stated by Shafiq earlier the mine action in Afghanistan is implemented by NGOs and these NGOs as it is very clear that they are non-governmental organizations and they work in different regimes in the past 30 years so they are very well known and well respected and they are following the still the humanitarian principle which is I could say a success for them to run project in different parts of the countries over that's maybe I could just add a brief historical notes to that when the program began in 1989 90 the UN office coordinating UN's action negotiated what was known as the humanitarian consensus and this was an understanding with both the the then pro-soviet government in Kabul and with all the different Mujahideen parties based mainly in Peshawar and Quetta and this was that the activities that were defined within the humanitarian program could be undertaken everywhere where the need was established according to the greatest need and that they would facilitate travel between the various areas and the activities that would be required and one of the most important elements of that discussion was to get everybody's all the parties agreement that mine risk education and mine clearance and minefield survey should be included as part of the humanitarian program of the understanding of what was included within the humanitarian program and at that time I think we all felt that was that was a bit of a breakthrough but it's been tremendously important not only in Afghanistan but in many other countries around the world that this understanding that humanitarian mine action is part of a set of humanitarian programs which should be encouraged and supported by all parties to a conflict this this has been maintained just just to add sorry if time allows so if there are issues in areas under the control of the Taliban normally en masse through Yanama and Ocha who has regular contacts with Taliban for example in Doha the issues has been discussed if it's relevant to the mine action if there are we had few the miners kidnapped by Taliban and then through those channels of union those issues were discussed and it's it's resulted in releasing of the the miners and releasing the equipments of the demining personnel so that setup is quite working well so far through UN dealing with the non-state or group specifically Taliban over thank you very much Selene you had a question Selene Cheng yes sorry thank you so much so I'm Selene I'm the explosive ordinance risk education specialist working for humanity and inclusion I had a very operational question actually related to the case study that was presented by Danish refugee council about the homes about clearing the homes that were constructed in part by ERW we're always looking for ways to link mine action other sectors such as cash transfer for example so I was wondering if there were any publications linked to lessons learned send best practices from this project as well as whether any kind of consideration was given in the perspective of a do no harm approach so for example by giving cash transfers to those who had constructed using explosive remnants of work what was there any fear about encouraging unsafe behaviour in other areas or communities thank you yeah yeah so go ahead really thank you yeah that's a really good question actually I think the project is still ongoing we've cleared about 30 or 40 out of the 100 or so houses that have this issue it is a concern for us I think it's very specific and very unusual that it's not necessarily we haven't found any link with the encouraging risky behaviour in fact our kind of clearance and rebuilding of their houses have encouraged other community members to come forward who were previously reluctant about telling us about this issue for fear of having their homes destroyed or some kind of consequence but it certainly would be a very interesting study to look at that more closely and to bring our risk education and our monitoring and evaluation teams in to make that connection and see if it exists between cash transfers and encouraging unsafe behaviour as a result. Ada Wynne we are approaching I'm afraid at the end but we have a little bit of time left Ada Wynne do you have your question please? Yeah thank you Dr Matt and thank you to all panelists I best make question based on my experience with Indian Army because I served there for 11 years and the question I put was using the capability of armed forces towards this demining ops because all through my career whenever the question of Afghanistan keep coming to us like due to the geopolitics India was not keen on giving some kind of offensive capabilities or stuff things like that to Afghan national defence forces but when you look at demining ops it has got a different perception towards us as a humanitarian role and if you ask donor countries to send a huge hundreds or thousands of peacekeepers they may not be able to do but they can send small cohorts of D-miners who can be used to build the capability of the Afghanistan or any other conflict affected country and also they have the expertise and different countries depending upon their economy and their relevance of their military policy they have a huge capability technology and things like that so would any of the panelists can tell me like how it can be done is it possible or like it's yeah thank you. Thank you very much very interesting question there on tapping into that expertise I don't know who wants to respond to that so Hila as well unconscious you may want to come in on some of these questions but Shafiq can pass Martin as well and indeed Daniel who wants to start. Do you want to go ahead Shafiq go ahead Shafiq yes. Please repeat the question again I didn't get the last point do you say that how was what is the rule of troop contributing nations to Afghanistan in terms of capacity development something like that? No because my question was to be specific the contributing troops for peacekeeping roles has got its own dynamics of geopolitics but here the demining operations should be looked from a humanitarian role because it's not only affecting the combatants or non-state actors but it's widely affecting the common people and their life stocks and source of their livelihood so a country which can have a different geopolitical interest for say like in Afghanistan can very well contribute to demining ops because it is a humanitarian I see it as a humanitarian role so and then armed forces they have huge expertise so is it feasible to tap it into their expertise and things in this parlance? Oh yeah yeah I think I got the point so the troop contributing nations they have provided lots of support to financially and also in terms of capacity development of a humanitarian demining in addition to that countries which they have sent their troops to Afghanistan they have trained some people within the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior specifically in terms of clearing landmines and OEDs in different parts of the country and they have schools in Afghanistan which continually providing such a training in terms of equipment and finance they also provided assistance to humanitarian mine action, MAPA organizations like DDG, DRC and other organizations some of that money has been used for capacity development but one thing that should be noted the military people cannot provide direct training to humanitarian demining organizations in order to avoid any harm to the neutrality of those organizations but the armanis or the armani which they provide it is being used for training of organizations I hope I was able to answer the question. Martin do you want to add to that yeah. Yes no I mean just to reinforce what what Shafiq just said when I was in charge of the UN mine action service in New York covering of the global operations of unmass this was a very sensitive and important issue and we constantly supported the distinction between support for humanitarian mine action programs and the activities of peacekeepers even if as unmass we worked with both it's really important to maintain that distinction and I think it's also important to see each operation in its very specific context because an activity that might be understood as benefiting one party to the conflict in one situation might not have the same implication in another situation so I think it's really important when considering ideas like this to to consider the context and also perhaps one other point the the the demining program the mine action program in Afghanistan has developed an understanding about its own context and the kinds of activities that that can be beneficial which is much greater than that of so-called experts coming in from other countries very often and I think and this doesn't just simply apply to Afghanistan of course sometimes the people who learn most from the advice of the international experts can be the international experts because they're learning a lot from the local D-minors who have worked out what the best techniques are in their situation thank you very much for that Martin it was a very good point we have a final question I think Julia yeah I just wanted to come thank you for the brilliant presentation and I just wanted to come with one question to Suhaila I've been in Afghanistan in 2018 and probably communication with female D-minors is one of the most inspiring things I've ever experienced and what is your experience as an Afghan woman tell us like just a briefly concluding remark working in a very male still traditionally male-dominated humanitarian mine action hello everyone thank you for the project questions well I have been working at the UN Mass or my first experience being in this sector is from UN Mass and I personally have been in contact and interviewed the female D-minors many times and they are very very strong personalities very strong women and it's a great love to their country so I believe if a man decide to work as a D-minor it really means that they really want to see their homeland safe from the mines so one of the major things that I noticed in them or many other for example we have a big portion of female risk education officers they also have a very challenging job to go to the communities and provide and deliver risk education and messages and my experience is that women are not given very easy jobs it's challenging jobs to be a woman and to work in mine action sector but despite of that all the opportunities and responsibilities given to women in mine action it has been a success it has not been any failure and as they study also showed that the productivity rate of women working in this sector are no less than men so personally my impression is that women are the crucial part of mine action in the success of mine action sector it's not nothing but help and significant help and need for the women in mine action and I hope in the future the rate of female staff in MAPA increases as so far it has been helpful for this program thank you well thank you very very much I think we have to bring proceedings to an end I think it's been an absolutely terrific session I I keep thinking of one of the slides you had Shafiq of that family where all the children had suffered directly from the the scourge of land mines and I think that picture itself is testimony to the importance of the work that you're all doing so I'm extremely grateful that you've taken time out to share your your experiences with us Martin Shafiq Sahayla and Daniel and I also want to reiterate a special thanks again to Julia for for conceiving of this idea of this session and deciding to organizing and perhaps this is something we should be doing every year every beginning of April to mark the importance of this subject so once again thank you so much everyone and and I hope to be able to invite you back to do this again thank you so much thank you thank you have a good day thank you very much thank you so much thank you Mary for moderating thank you everyone very interesting