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Clearing the Mines 2022

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New Annual Report on Global Anti-Personnel Mine Clearance by Mine Action Review

Mine Action Review has published Clearing the Mines 2022, its ninth annual report monitoring progress in anti-personnel mine clearance and analysing performance of national programmes.
The report publication is in advance of the forthcoming Twentieth Meeting of States Parties to the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (APMBC) on 21–25 November 2022 in Geneva, during which States and observers will consider progress in ridding the world of anti-personnel mines.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the historic adoption and signing of the APMBC. Huge progress has been made in the intervening years. Methodology for addressing mine contamination has improved significantly, and best practice now requires the application of targeted and evidence-based non-technical and technical survey to accurately identify and confirm mined areas, saving millions of dollars on wasted clearance of uncontaminated land.
Innovations in technology, such as the use of unmanned aerial vehicles/drones, are also increasingly contributing to the efficiency of survey and clearance operations. Gender and diversity, together with the environment, while barely referenced in original Convention text, are increasingly and rightly being mainstreamed in national mine action programmes.
According to Clearing the Mines 2022, a global total of more than 152 square kilometres of mined area was cleared of anti-personnel mines in 2021, with the destruction of over 157,000 anti-personnel mines. This represents a slight decrease on the previous year, but is nonetheless an impressive achievement, especially given the continued impact of COVID-19 in many countries.
No State Party to APMBC declared fulfilment of its Article 5 clearance obligations in the course of 2021. In June 2021, Guinea-Bissau, which had declared completion of mine clearance in 2012, reported that it had discovered previously unrecorded mined areas on its territory. This leaves a global total of 56 States and 3 other areas (territories not generally recognised as States) are contaminated with anti-personnel mines,1 of which 34 are party to the APMBC.
Based on Mine Action Review’s assessment of the extent of contamination in affected States Parties, Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Iraq are massively contaminated (defined as covering more than 100km2 of land), while heavy contamination (covering more than 20km2–100km2) exists in Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Thailand, Türkiye, and Yemen. In other affected States Parties, the extent of anti-personnel mine contamination is medium or light.
The largest clearance output was reported for Cambodia, which recorded more than 43km2 of clearance in 2021, followed by Croatia, which recorded more than 34km2 in 2021, and Afghanistan, which recorded more than 24km2 of clearance; despite the drop in respective clearance output in all three States compared to 2020. The greatest number of anti-personnel mines destroyed in 2021 in a single country was in Zimbabwe (26,534), followed by Sri Lanka (23,266).
The importance of environmental considerations is also becoming increasingly prominent in mine action as it is across all sectors. This year, for the first time, Mine Action Review has included a section on Environmental Policies and Action in each of our country reports.
We have also assessed implementation of the Oslo Action Plan – a five-year action plan adopted by States Parties in 2019. Half way through implementation of the action plan, the results of Mine Action Review’s monitoring of indicators related to survey and clearance show that while progress is being made in many of the indicators, it remains too slow in too many affected countries.
Lucy Pinches, the Mine Action Review’s Project Manager emphasises: “As things stand, very few affected States Parties will meet the target set by the 2014 Maputo Review Conference and to which they recommitted at the 2019 Oslo Review Conference, for a world free of anti-personnel mines by the end of 2025.
If, however, programme performance improved and sufficient funding were provided, many more States could also be cleared of anti-personnel mines by the 2025 target. However, this will take political will, elaboration of concrete strategies and work plans, the application of efficient land release methodology, strong national mine action standards, and well-managed information management systems to support land release efforts. It will also take sufficient and sustained funding through to completion.
The mine ban community must remain committed to collectively supporting affected States to become free from the terrible scourge of mines. We owe it to the affected communities.”