Article 6 of the Mine Ban Treaty on international cooperation and assistance recognizes the right of each State Party to seek and receive assistance from other States Parties in fulfilling its treaty obligations. The Monitor reports annually on support for mine action by affected countries and on international mine action assistance reported by donor states. The Monitor relies in most cases on responses to requests for information from donors and affected states.

Key Developments in 2009

Donors and affected states devoted approximately US$622 million to mine action in 2009.

National mine action contributions from affected states increased from $144 million in 2008 to $173 million in 2009, with Croatia and Angola accounting for 56% of the total.

In 2009, 33 donors contributed US$449 million to 54 countries and areas. This is approximately the same as in 2008 when contributions totaled $455 million and the fourth consecutive year that contributions were over $400 million.^[1] Twenty-six states received less support in 2009 and 27 states received more compared to 2008.

In 2009:

• Contributions from the top five mine action donors—the United States, European Commission (EC), Japan, Norway, and Germany—accounted for 61% of all donor funding.
• The top five recipient states—Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Sudan—received almost 50% of all international mine action contributions in 2009.
• Of the 33 donors reporting contributions to mine action in 2009, 15 reported supporting victim assistance, totaling $38 million, or 9% of the global total, with 25% going to the ICRC and national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The US ($10.9 million), Norway (NOK44.3 million/$7 million), and Australia (A$6.4 million/$5 million) provided 60% of all reported victim assistance funding in 2009.

New donors included Oman, Poland, and South Korea. The largest new recipient was Pakistan, which received €1.3 million ($1.8 million) from the EC for risk education. Other new recipients included Belarus, Gambia, Mali, Niger, Palau, Philippines, Syria, and Ukraine.

Assessments from the UN General Assembly totaling $69 million bolstered funding for mine action operations within peacekeeping operations. Of that, approximately $50 million in 2009 was allocated to the UN-African Union Hybrid operation in Darfur (UNAMID) and the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS).

International Contributions

Contributions by donor: 2005–2009^[2]

Thirty-three donors provided $449 million to mine action in 2009, compared to $455 million in 2008. The US, the EC, Japan, Norway, and Germany provided 61% of international support, compared to 49% in 2008.

Australia, BiH, Czech Republic, EC, France, Qatar, and the US increased their contributions from 2008. Eight countries decreased their contributions by 20% or more. For example, Canada decreased its contribution by $24.4 million (a decrease of 57%), and eight European countries and Japan had a cumulative decline totaling $44 million, ranging in percentage terms from a 71% decline in support by Austria to a 7% decline in support from Japan.

Presentage decrease from 2008 to 2009

Donors with the largest decreases in contributions from 2008 to 2009

Though it is difficult to ascertain clear funding strategies based on funding in 2008 and 2009, several donors provided indications of their intentions through statements at international fora. In June 2010, Canada called on states to ensure that funding is “consistent, synergistic and mutually reinforcing,” to minimize overlap and maximize the impact of contributions in support of the implementation of both the Mine Ban Treaty and the Convention on Cluster Munitions.^[3] Switzerland and Germany noted they follow a holistic approach in their mine action strategies and do not differentiate between action on mines/ERW and cluster munitions. Germany said the same holistic approach applies to victim assistance. Japan stated it intended to support the clearance of cluster munitions and victim assistance through partnerships and post-conflict peace building. Norway planned to support the Convention on Cluster Munitions under its humanitarian disarmament budget, the same channel it uses to support the Mine Ban Treaty.

International contributions by recipient: 2009^[4]

Recipients

A total of 54 countries and areas received $449 million from 33 donors in 2009. This is approximately the same as in 2008 when contributions totaled $455 million.

A Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) study^[5] on the motivation of donors in 2010 found that although donors continue to fund mine action based on the Mine Ban Treaty, they no longer view mine contamination strictly as an emergency issue requiring a humanitarian response. Most donors, the study found, consider mine action support as part of a broader development funding strategy which includes humanitarian assistance. More than three-quarters of the 25 donors that participated in the study indicated countries receiving assistance for mine action were also receiving other forms of aid. The study concluded the mine action community faced growing competition for financial resources from the broader peace and security field, and the integration of mine action into development plans.

Trends observes in 2009 include:

• 10 countries and two areas received at least 15% more funds in 2009: Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Chad, Colombia, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Peru, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan, as well as Abkhazia and Western Sahara.
• 17 countries and four areas received at least 15% less funds in 2009: Angola, BiH, Burundi, Croatia, DRC, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Lebanon, Mauritania, Myanmar, Nepal, Senegal, Serbia, Sudan, Uganda, and Vietnam, as well as Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, Palestine, and Somaliland.
• 13 countries received support in 2009 that did not receive or report support in 2008: Armenia, Belarus, Cyprus, Gambia, Mali, Niger, Pakistan, Palau, Philippines, Syria, Thailand, Ukraine, and Zambia.

Recipients receiving 15% or more increased support in 2009

Note: Other areas are indicated by italics.

Recipients receiving at least 15% less support in 2009

Note: Other areas are indicated by italics.

National Contributions

Contributions from affected countries to domestic mine action programs increased from 2008, but remained underreported. In 2009, 24 states reported $173 million in government financial support.^[6] This compares to 24 states which contributed $144 million in 2008. Rwanda, Thailand, and Zimbabwe reported national contributions in 2008, but not in 2009. Denmark, Egypt, and Eritrea reported national contributions in 2009, but not in 2008. The UK began clearing mined areas in the Falkland Islands/Malvinas in 2009 and contracted BACTEC International Ltd. to conduct clearance operations but the value of the contract, which was completed in May 2010, was not available.

Despite the increases in national contributions reported in 2008 and 2009, an analysis of the data provides a mixed overall picture of national contributions. Angola, BiH, Colombia, and Croatia accounted for 75% of all national contributions in 2009. While Croatia funds almost 95% of its mine action program from national sources, the large contributions from Angola, BiH, and Colombia represented approximately 50% of the total cost of mine action in those countries in 2009. Furthermore, while 24 affected states reported national contributions, 32 affected states and areas did not report making national contributions.

Better reporting and more transparency are the two primary reasons for the increase in known national contributions. For example, Angola and Colombia reported mine action budgets and expenditures of $30 million and $16 million, respectively, on government websites. Of the $16 million reported by Colombia, $10 million was for making social security payments to landmine survivors, a type of victim assistance that goes largely unreported by most countries. Angola reported $8 million of $30 million in national contributions was directed for victim assistance, most of which went to funding the country’s largest orthopedic hospital and rehabilitation center.

Funding by Thematic Sector

Mine clearance and risk education

Eight of the seventeen largest donors allocated at least 90% of their support to clearance and risk education.

Most donors reported clearance and risk education as a combined figure, which makes it impossible to get a clear picture of the funding allocated specifically to risk education. Of the donors who reported risk education separately, the US led with its funding of 13 risk education projects in 10 countries for $2.4 million, followed by the EC in Pakistan with €1.26 million/$1.8 million, Japan with projects in two countries for ¥72.35 million/$770,000, Australia in Sri Lanka for A$200,000/$158,540, Spain to UNICEF in Colombia for $557,000, and Switzerland in Lao PDR for CHF520,000/$478,821.^[7] All other risk education funding was reported together with funding for clearance.

Victim assistance

Of the 33 donors that reported support to mine action, 15 reported funding victim assistance for a total of $38 million, or 9% of all funding. Seven donors (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, and Spain) allocated at least 20% of their funding to victim assistance. Austria provided €85,000/$118,448 to Handicap International for its Voices from the Ground study on victim assistance from a survivor’s perspective. The European Union (EU) reported it supports victim assistance through its broader development programs but did not report the amount of support. At the Special Session on Cooperation and Assistance held during the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in Geneva in June 2010, the EU said only by integrating mine action into the development agenda can sustainable results be achieved, especially in regard to victim assistance.^[8]

However, the significance of the international amount of the victim assistance funding is difficult to determine. The majority of all victim assistance funding assists people of all disabilities and most of the victim assistance support is provided at the local level through a wide range of government ministries and agencies, NGOs, social service agencies, and advocacy groups.

The US, Norway, and Australia provided 60% of all victim assistance funding in 2009. Of the $10.9 million from the US, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Patrick Leahy War Victims Fund provided $6.9 million in 2009 to projects in Colombia, Lao PDR, Lebanon, Ethiopia, and the Philippines, the ICRC Special Fund for the Disabled (SFD), and the International Society of Prosthetics and Orthotics (ISPO). Norway contributed $7 million to VA and Australia $5 million. Austria, Australia, Belgium, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the US reported $13.7 million, or approximately one-third of all VA funding, in support to the ICRC or to national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The remainder of the victim assistance funding was for small projects with a narrow beneficiary base, illustrated by the $152,000 Japan provided to a national NGO in Syria to make artificial limbs for landmine survivors and the $56,000 provided by Germany to the Albanian Pain Association.

Seven donors (Australia, Austria, Liechtenstein, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, and the USAID Patrick Leahy War Victims Fund) supported the ICRC SFD, which supported 63 projects in 30 countries in 2009, with CHF5,417,583 ($4.99 million). However, the amount raised from donors fell short and resulted in a shortfall of CHF606,727 ($558,680).^[9]

Advocacy

Fifteen governments contributed $11 million, or 3% of all funding, to advocacy efforts. More than 10% of the support from Norway, Ireland, and Luxembourg went towards advocacy, including support for the Second Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty in Cartagena, regional meetings held in the lead-up to the Second Review Conference in 2009, and government travel sponsorship through UNDP and the sponsorship program of the Implementation Support Unit at GICHD. The CMC, ICBL, GICHD, and Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor also received donor support for advocacy.

Other Funding Paths

The $449 million in support to mine action in 2009 represents government contributions under bilateral and international programs and in accordance with international treaty obligations. It does not represent the complete expenditures for field operations. Other funding sources include foundations, private fundraising by NGOs, and mine action allocations in countries with peacekeeping operations.

Twenty governments, the EC, and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) contributed approximately $90 million to the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Assistance in Mine Action (UN VTF) for activities in 18 countries and UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) coordination; almost all of this was earmarked by the donor for a specific country. The donors with the largest contributions to the UN VTF were Canada, EC, Japan, and the Netherlands. Several small donors used the UN VTF to contribute to mine action. They included: Andorra, South Korea, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and UNHCR.^[10]

Donors also contributed $31.9 million to the International Trust Fund for Demining and Mine Victims Assistance (ITF) and $6.9 million to the Organization of American States (OAS) for regional mine action programs in southeastern Europe and Latin America, respectively.^[11]

Eleven governments reported contributing nearly $12 million to GICHD in 2009, with Switzerland providing 75% of the total.^[12]

In 2009 donors also funded mine action through UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery for Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, BiH, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Lao PDR, Mozambique, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, and Sudan.^[13] UNICEF reported funding for risk education projects in Albania, Cambodia, Colombia, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, Lao PDR, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Yemen.^[14]

Peacekeeping operations

Peacekeeping operations in Chad, Cyprus, DRC, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan (Darfur and South Sudan), and Western Sahara have mine action programs that are partially funded by appropriations assessments by the UN General Assembly as part of its peacekeeping mission budgets. The appropriation increased by 6% from $65 million in 2008 to $69 million in 2009. Approximately $50 million in 2009 was allocated to the UNAMID and UNMIS missions. The mine action program in Darfur in 2009 was funded through UNAMID at $10.8 million which included three rapid response teams and the deployment of one route verification team to conduct emergency surveys, battle area clearance, and route verification as well as risk education for the local population and internally displaced persons.^[15]

States Parties Granted Extension Requests

At the end of 2009 States Parties had approved Article 5 extension requests from 17 countries and, as of August 2010, Colombia, Guinea-Bissau, and Mauritania had submitted requests totaling $2.8 billion in both international and national projected funding needs. From 2011 to 2020 the amount of international assistance needed for 14 countries (not including Guinea-Bissau) to meet their Article 5 obligations is $841 million, representing approximately 30% of all support needed to clear all mined areas as planned in the extension requests. The financial commitment from affected countries represents $1.9 billion, or 70% of the total costs reflecting progress made towards achieving national ownership of mine action programs. Venezuela, Denmark, and the UK indicated they did not need international support to meet their Article 5 obligations.

An analysis of the amount of international support needed for clearance in each country indicates that several countries fell far short of support received in 2009 than they had planned. For example, Thailand received less than 1% ($111,272) of its planned international support in 2009.

BiH committed to provide $37 million from national and local sources, but only provided $15 million in 2009. BiH’s capacity to meet its national commitment became more problematic in May 2010 when its parliament defeated a measure for funding demining on the grounds that a three-year mine action strategy had not been approved and that no new budget lines could be approved due to difficult economic times in 2009 and 2010.^[16]

In 2009, Thailand committed THB900 million ($26.4 million) to the first year of its extension period, but no figures are available on the actual expenditures.^[17] Thailand cleared 2.5km2 in 2009, but fell short of targets set out in its Article 5 extension request, which called for demining of 43km2 in 2009.

The national commitments reflected in the Article 5 extension requests are impressive, and are best illustrated by Croatia, through its plan to maintain its national contribution at 95%, and by Peru and Yemen, which have made commitments to provide at least 75% of the support needed from the national government. However, actual funds committed in 2009 by some countries are a cause for concern. BiH and Thailand both made large national commitments in their extension requests, but in 2009 fell well short of meeting their commitments.

Article 5 extension request international funding needs^[18]

N/R = Not reported * In 2009, BiH fell 50% short in meeting its goal in national funding and a three-year mine action strategy had not been adopted as of 13 May 2010 and without approval, the government could not allocate funding to support the strategy[19]