Most of the mines that currently threaten populations were manufactured more than 50 years ago and many have been in the ground for 30 years or more. Despite the inevitable and obvious deterioration, there has been very little research into the effects of aging on landmines. In 2008, James Madison University (JMU), the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery (CISR), and C King Associates Ltd (CKA) began a study designed to understand the aging process and the range of implications for the various components of mine action. The two-and-a-half year study was funded by grants from the US Department of State, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs/Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement.
From 9 to 12 June 2009, representatives of the Colombian government's humanitarian mine action office and the Humanitarian Demining Department of the Colombian military met to devise a way forward in planning for the expansion and enhancement of the country's program to eradicate landmines from the national territory. The Mine Action Information Center at James Madison University facilitated the Colombia Humanitarian Demining Planning Workshop (Taller de Planificación del Desminado Humanitario en Colombia) in Bogotá, Colombia. The workshop was sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, and was attended by representatives from the U.S. and Colombian governments, international organizations, and key stakeholders in Colombia's work against landmines. More than 40 participants worked together to draft a Plan of Action for Colombian humanitarian demining activities. They will use the plan as a guiding document for developing future mine-action activities. The plan emphasized integration and cooperation among military forces, national authorities, and international partners. The workshop opened with speeches from Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos Calderón and Andrés Dávila, director of the Programa Presidencial de Acción Integral contra las Minas Antipersonal (PPAICMA, the Presidential Program for Comprehensive Action against Antipersonnel Landmines). Officials from PPAICMA and the Humanitarian Demining Department of the Armed Forces of Colombia then described for the group the current status of the country's humanitarian mine clearance program and its planned expansion. Presentations by international counterparts from the Organization of American States, Jordan's National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation, Mines Advisory Group, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Southern Command provided additional information and lessons learned from other mine-affected countries that were considered potentially useful in the Colombian context.
From 9 to 12 June 2009, representatives of the Colombian government's humanitarian mine action office and the Humanitarian Demining Department of the Colombian military met to devise a way forward in planning for the expansion and enhancement of the country's program to eradicate landmines from the national territory. The Mine Action Information Center at James Madison University facilitated the Colombia Humanitarian Demining Planning Workshop (Taller de Planificación del Desminado Humanitario en Colombia) in Bogotá, Colombia. The workshop was sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, and was attended by representatives from the U.S. and Colombian governments, international organizations, and key stakeholders in Colombia's work against landmines. More than 40 participants worked together to draft a Plan of Action for Colombian humanitarian demining activities. They will use the plan as a guiding document for developing future mine-action activities. The plan emphasized integration and cooperation among military forces, national authorities, and international partners. The workshop opened with speeches from Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos Calderón and Andrés Dávila, director of the Programa Presidencial de Acción Integral contra las Minas Antipersonal (PPAICMA, the Presidential Program for Comprehensive Action against Antipersonnel Landmines). Officials from PPAICMA and the Humanitarian Demining Department of the Armed Forces of Colombia then described for the group the current status of the country's humanitarian mine clearance program and its planned expansion. Presentations by international counterparts from the Organization of American States, Jordan's National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation, Mines Advisory Group, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Southern Command provided additional information and lessons learned from other mine-affected countries that were considered potentially useful in the Colombian context.
As we prosecute the current campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and the Philippines, the military must also prepare for an uncertain security situation beyond the present theaters of conflict. It is a future that will be heavily influenced by global competition for declining natural resources, rapidly rising populations in underprivileged and underdeveloped areas, unstable economic markets, and the continuing resurgence of violent religious and secular ideologies challenging democracy as a credible political theory. Additionally, U.S. Force must account for the impact of rapid information transfer, porous national borders, globalization, increased indigent migrating populations with elevated expectations, and a proliferation of technologies associated with making and employing weapons of mass destruction. To prepare for future contingencies in such a world, we must build capabilities that enable forces to rapidly adapt to crises emerging from unanticipated events. "Rapidly adapting" in this context means acquiring the ability to quickly change not only weapons and the way we supply ourselves, but the way we think and train to deal with new challenges in unfamiliar circumstances. To deal with this security environment, we must cultivate a whole-government intra-service and interagency culture of flexibility. It was for the purpose of enabling U.S. land forces to see more clearly, understand more readily, and transform more quickly that the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center (CAC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Development Center (MCCDC) at Quantico, Virginia, took action to jointly establish the Counterinsurgency Center (COIN Center), located at Fort Leavenworth in 2006. The information in this pamphlet outlines the COIN Center's origin, current missions and purpose, and vision for the future. The COIN Center is still a work in progress. But it is one that is vitally needed to facilitate the development of a culture that enables us to more effectively adapt as a whole government when called upon to deal with future COIN or COIN-like threats.
By design, the purpose of this Adaptive Technology Catalog is to provide a resource for governments, survivor-assistance and other agencies to help victims of landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) and other disabled workers get back to self-sufficiency and paid work. Designing, developing and identifying simple and inexpensive tools and programs that assist with survivor work reintegration is a challenge with broad implications for the economic recovery of communities and nations as they emerge from conflict. The Adaptive Technology Catalog was created to offer information pertaining to both products that are readily available for use and those that may require some modification depending on intended usage. We expect this Catalog to be a resource for governments and organizations planning rehabilitation projects and those working in the field of survivors' assistance. Although this is not an all-inclusive publication, we hope that you find the tools in it useful. It is not a comprehensive catalog by any means. There are certainly many more companies around the world that produce similar products or tools that are even more innovative and practical for the mine-affected population. We invite you to let us know about manufacturers and innovative tools you have created or found to help your survivors recover and reintegrate into society.
There are a number of resources available at the MAIC and elsewhere to help people get involved. This edition of The Landmine Action Smart Book is perhaps the best place to start. This book was designed to give readers a basic introduction to the subject of mine action, a discipline that includes a diverse set of activities such as landmine clearance, research and development of new demining technologies and practices, mine risk education, survivor assistance, planning and coordination, and policy formulation. Each chapter of the Smart Book provides an overview of the components involved in reaching our ultimate goal of a world that is safe from the threat of landmines. The chapter on International Diplomacy outlines the efforts undertaken by various government and non-government entities to limit the use and threat of these weapons. Other chapters will help you to learn more about the strategies employed to limit the damage to the health and welfare of civilian populations for whom landmines are a daily concern. At the end of this book you will find helpful suggestions to get you started on the road to action and a list of websites to further guide you in your endeavors.
This guide provides information to facilitate international unexploded ordnance (UXO) awareness and identification. This guide is not intended for use by Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technicians. Rather, it is designed for other personnel who, of necessity, are trying to identify ordnance in the absence of trained EOD military professionals.
In 2003, the United States Department of State, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs/Weapons Removal and Abatement, (PM/WRA) tasked the James Madison University Mine Action Information Center (MAIC) with producing a cost-benefit analysis of two demining programs to be used to develop a model to analyze the quantitative impacts, expected results, and suggested prioritization of mine clearance activities. Prioritization was to be accomplished within the context of socio-economic development programs. Lessons learned from UN guidance, earlier studies, experts in the mine action community, and field studies influenced the development of the decision tool for prioritization of humanitarian mine action projects. The MAIC team reviewed different methods of conducting cost-benefit analysis, including their usefulness and disadvantages, prior to field studies in Thailand and Ethiopia. These countries provided insight and first hand validation of the selection of parameters for a cost-benefit analysis model that would prioritize humanitarian mine action projects. Due to the difficulty in obtaining quantitative data, particularly for socio-economic factors, several multi-criteria approaches were also examined and the analytic hierarchy process was chosen for consideration. The report, "Decision Tools for Selection of Humanitarian Mine Action Projects," (Knickrehm and Stewart 2004) was written in tandem with this manual and describes the background material and field study notes for the development of these models.
The Iraq Ordnance Identification Guide supports the U.S. Department of Defense humanitarian mine action program. This guide provides information to facilitate international unexploded ordnance (UXO) awareness and identification. This guide is not intended for use by Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technicians. Rather, it is designed for other personnel who, of necessity, are trying to identify ordnance in the absence of trained EOD military professionals.
More than 125 representatives from across the Hemisphere met in Bogotá from November 12 through 14, 2003 to take part in the "Regional Seminar on Antipersonnel Landmine Victims," sponsored by the Organization of American States Mine Action Program, the Mine Action Information Center of James Madison University and the Office of the Vice President of the Republic of Colombia, and made possible with financial support from the Department of State of the United States. The purpose of the seminar was two-fold. First, it aimed to bring together experts and practitioners in the field of victim assistance from national and local governments in mine-affected countries, donor nations, and nongovernmental and international organizations to share experiences and evaluate the possibility for new partnerships. In addition, several landmine survivors from throughout the Americas participated in the seminar, offering some unique perspectives on the issue.
The third annual regional landmine action seminar entitled "En Camino Hacia un Hemisferio Libre de Minas Antipersonal," hosted by the Government of Perú and sponsored by the Government of Canada and the Mine Action Program (AICMA, for its initials in Spanish) of the Organization of American States (OAS), was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lima, Perú, on August 14–15 2003. The two-day gathering brought together over 100 mine action experts from 24 countries and more than a dozen regional and international organizations to discuss a wealth of mine action topics including, among others, the definition of national and regional priorities, mine clearance, mine risk education, victim assistance, and stockpile destruction. These topics allowed for a holistic discussion on mine action within the region and provided a forum for representatives of countries throughout the Americas to address issues concerning every facet of mine action, as well as the challenges they face in their countries. Most importantly, participants shared with regional counterparts their plans and projections through 2004. This was also the first of two opportunities to assist Ottawa Convention State Parties of the Americas to prepare for the 2004 Review Conference.
This study, "The Role of Civil Affairs in Mine Action," is not intended to be read from cover to cover by most users. It has been researched and written with three target audiences in mind: 1) the Mine Action official who would like to learn more about the application of Civil Affairs capabilities to humanitarian demining activities, 2) the Civil Affairs officer who would like to learn more about challenges and actions within the realm of humanitarian demining operations, and 3) US military officials who have a responsibility for, or an interest in, the proper unit design and uses of CA forces. For someone who is interested in determining the capabilities and constraints of the Department of Defense and its Civil Affairs forces, Sections III, IV and V will provide just such a tutorial. For those CA soldiers interested in understanding more about the threat of latent landmines and what that means to the US in terms of national security policy and support actions, Sections I, and II will give the necessary background. Sections VI and VII are analytical studies, which evaluate both the pragmatic and conceptual methods of applying CA capabilities to the demining mission. These sections should help a force designer or planner to understand the real requirements and environment in which CA elements function.
The demand for a centralized lessons learned database has made it clear that there is value in consolidating the experience derived from the numerous de-mining missions by a variety of teams in a variety of countries. Consequently, the James Madison University Mine Action Information Center developed a methodology for collecting, validating, and distributing lessons-learned within the mine action community. In order to develop this lessons-learned system, individuals involved in the wide spectrum of activities (victim assistance, mine clearance, survey, mine awareness, etc.) and belonging to the myriad agencies (NGOs, military demining, United Nations, MACs, etc.) related to the field of mine action were contacted and interviewed individually, and at two international conferences. Finally, the current state of lessons-learned within the community was analyzed, a Needs Assessment was performed, key stakeholders were identified, and a working model was developed.
The following list describes organizations that have been active in conducting humanitarian demining activities in Mozambique. The list includes NGO's, IO's, commercial firms, governmental and military organizations. Printouts for some organizations with websites are included in Appendix A and are coded with an asterisk in the list.
The Humanitarian Demining Information Center (HDIC) at James Madison University is developing a plan for identifying, analyzing, enhancing, and disseminating electronic and hard copy information relating to humanitarian demining. The first step toward realizing this objective was identifying the information needs, information availability and optimal methods for organizing and delivering information to the humanitarian demining community. Broadly conceived, the humanitarian demining community consists of ten components. • U.S. government agencies that have as part of their mission the development of programs for humanitarian demining in selected countries • volunteer organizations that are directly involved in the task of humanitarian demining • for-profit organizations that are directly involved in the task of humanitarian demining • those who devise or provide technologies for this activity • volunteer organizations whose primary mission is that of providing short emergency aid or long term development assistance to victims of natural disasters and civil unrest that brings them into contact with the landmine threat • organizations whose interest in the field of humanitarian demining lies in the area of public advocacy • academic and research organizations whose involvement in humanitarian demining is largely tangential through their broader interest in world politics • relief organizations that have a sustained and direct exposure to humanitarian demining projects • UN or international organizations' agencies that are charged with demining as a subset of responding to complex human emergencies and promoting disaster prevention and preparedness • Local or host government agencies that provide an indigenous capability to undertake humanitarian demining operations Data from these organizations was obtained by a variety of means including: telephone surveys, analysis of printed material, analysis of organizational web sites, a conference on humanitarian demining held at James Madison University, and a survey of the existing literature on humanitarian demining. When significant differences exist in the nature of the response by these organizations to the questions asked in the telephone survey or in their printed material and web sites, these differences are noted in the analysis.
