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One of the most remarkable multilateral achievements by international civil society and a group of core states has been the global prohibition on the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines (APMs). Developed and agreed upon in just one year, the Mine Ban Treaty was signed by 122 states in December 1997, and entered into binding international law in March 1999. (...) While the Mine Ban Treaty is consolidated and enforced on a multilateral level, one country is slowly going about the business of ridding itself of these hidden killers. As a State Party (signed and ratified) of the Mine Ban Treaty, Mozambique is obliged to remove all mined areas within its jurisdiction within 10 years - a near impossible task. The current Mozambican government, and successive governments to come, will continue to grapple for many decades with the problem of clearing APMs left over from nearly three decades of conflict. (SAJIA/DÜI)

After reviewing the nature and extent of the landmine problem in Mozambique, this article applies cost-benefit analysis to landmine clearance in that country. The main benefits of clearance are saved lives, injuries and medical costs and the agricultural output that is not lost if landmines are cleared. A very large negative net present value was estimated, a result explicable by the high costs of clearance, the relatively small number of people killed or injured by landmines and the low value of agricultural productivity per hectare. The article concludes with a discussion of the role of the economist in analysing such issues and suggests some alternative areas in which financial resources would provide a greater positive impact on the welfare of Mozambicans. (Dev South Afr/DÜI)