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|  | Liaison Newsletter > LIAISON Vol. 2, No. 6, November 1998 - Articles
Mines Action Canada keeps up the good fight Mines Action Canada (MAC) is developing strategy on the fly as a number of government departments court the landmines ban and post-ban mine action coalition. Always wary of its collaboration with government, MAC has cautiously moved look at offers to sit with CIDA, DFAIT and DND/Industry in reviewing project proposals aimed at mine action. The job is not an easy one, nor is it without a good deal of debate within MAC itself. Difficult questions need to be tackled: Does collaboration with government mean MAC will be perceived as supporting any misdirection of expenditures into areas NGOs want to stay clear of? Or does a "seat at the table" mean the coalition can veto bad spending practices and redirect funds into the most urgent areas. The international campaign to ban landmines (ICBL), the 1997 co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, has long called for addressing mine action needs as defined by mined communities. Often that priority conflicts with the public purse and the politics of government spending. On October 26, MAC presented its views to a room of corporations seeking research and development money from the Landmine Fund (a chunk of money that totals $100 million over five years.) The Canadian Centre for Mine Action Technology (CCMAT) has received $17 million out of the pot (as compared to a fraction of that amount for CIDA-directed projects). Not everybody was pleased with MAC's presentation, but there were strong presentations given by military, industry and foreign affairs personnel, in support of intelligent spending on appropriate technology. Nongovernmental organizations are concerned that overhead costs at the new CCMAT technology centre and spending on frivolous megaprojects will chew up monies critically needed in the field right now by demining NGOs. Complaints about underfunding demining have been coming in from Mines Advisory Group, Norwegian People's Aid, Halo Trust and others. Mines Action Canada objected from the beginning to the partitioning of the Canadian government's $100 million fund into discrete departments with separate agendas and obligations. Mine action, the coalition argued, is about integrating capacities within a developmental framework, not splitting funds into technology for DND and Industry, demining for CIDA, treaty ratification for DFAIT. Four departments, three separate windows to run to, each window with different rules. At the CCMAT seminar, MAC drew specific attention to the need for a developmental focus. MAC supports the ICBL developmental principles outlined in what have come to be known as the "Bad Honnef Guidelines", named after the German city in which they were formulated. Mines Action Canada pointed out that: "The guidelines are based on the principle that war can extend beyond the signing of a peace agreement, and that is because there are lasting effects wars have for both the societies involved, broadly speaking, and the individual members of affected areas. " Attempts at rehabilitation therefore require a comprehensive approach to reconstruction and development, not stop-gap measures. The allocation of funds and the guidelines applied are often still determined by political interests with the aim of producing glossy, perhaps superficial results as quickly as possible. Sometimes that means it is of secondary interest whether demined roads can in fact contribute to resuscitating agriculture, whether the repatriated people succeed in rebuilding viable structures, or whether the prostheses do indeed accomplish the goal of reintegrating the war-disabled." In late November of last year, three humanitarian demining and development organizations (Mines Advisory Group, Norwegian People's Aid and Handicap International) put together a set of principles that the International Campaign, including Mines Action Canada has adopted. These principles of the three organizations mesh nicely with the Bad Honnef Guidelines. Specifically, they recognize the need for objective analysis of the requirements of affected communities, cultural sensitivity, a responsible approach to the welfare of the employed personnel doing the demining and a approach to new mine clearance technologies and methodologies. Mines Action Canada has been invited to sit on the Management Committee and the Executive Committee of the Canadian Centre for Mine Action Technology (CCMAT). MAC made it know that the coalition opposes the Landmine Fund being used to assist in promoting or obtaining alternatives to landmines. Development of "alternatives" to landmines are presently part of the Centre's mandate, although the nature of those alternatives is as yet, unclear. Not surprisingly, MAC also made it know that they were opposed to money from the Landmine Fund being disbursed to companies engaged in activities which contribute to the proliferation of landmines. Companies that have been involved in the production of landmines in the past, were encouraged to publicly state that their enterprises are now opposed to landmines and committed to working to end the humanitarian crisis caused by such victim-activated weapons. Similarly, we would encourage revenues from new technologies to be injected back into the Landmine Fund. MAC is concerned not only about the direction of revenues of new technologies, but the nature of the new technologies themselves. Technology appropriate to humanitarian demining is cost-effective, robust, transportable, sustainable, easy to learn to use, safe, protective of the deminer, and EFFECTIVE in detecting or removing explosive material. The list of "developmental approach" requirement may be too stringent for many companies, especially those seeking a quick injection of seed money and quicker profits in the short term. The mine action technology research competition directed at Canadian universities continues to build momentum. Much of the background material available for this project (a major project for the MAC coalition this year) is intended to interest a new generation of engineers and developers in the area of building equipment to fit the needs defined by communities in crisis, rather than technical innovations driven in isolation. Interest is growing in the competition and there are more than two dozen inquiries by students as of early November, with four weeks to go for initial entries. You can view the web-based component of the project (hosted by the National Capital Region Branch) at: http://www.ncrb.unac.org/landmines/competition.html A new major project that Mines Action Canada has undertaken this year is the development of the Landmine Monitor on-line database, a huge project aimed at archiving the global landmine problem and direction of the solution. Information will be fed to MAC from members of the International Campaign, governments and citizens. Best practices, survey information, campaign contacts and development, victim and survivor statistics will all be entered into the database. There will be categories of access, in part because of the sensitivity of some of the information and the need to verify data and ensure that sources are both reliable and protected from harm. You can visit MAC on-line at: http://www.minesactioncanada.com |
