The opening ceremony for the Angola-Cambodia Training Program in Mine Action Management was held at CMAC Headquarters in Phnom Penh on 21 March 2016. This mine action management training is supported by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and is the second phase of South-South Cooperation between Cambodia and Angola in the Mine Action Sector.
The opening ceremony was chaired by H.E. Mr Heng Ratana Delegate of the Royal Government in charge as Director General of CMAC and co-chaired Mr Itsu Adachi Chief Representative of JICA in Cambodia and Mr Barnabe Frederico, Chief of Provincial Department INAD. The main purpose being to develop human resources and strengthen the institutional capacity of the Angolan National Institute of Demining (INAD) by sharing knowledge, experiences and learnings in mine action with the Cambodian Mine Action Centre. This second phase provides deeper and more specialised management training for those who already have many years of experience in demining. Over the next three weeks the delegates from INAD will go through in class training courses in mine action management as well as being exposed to first hand practical experiences with field visits and tours of mine action related organisations.
It was pointed out that CMAC had already hosted three successful workshops with Angola, two in 2014 and the third one in March 2015.
The Chief Representative of JICA in Cambodia Mr Itsu Adachi welcomed the Angola delegates and thanked CMAC officials for the effort they had put into organising this South-South cooperation training. He said that CMAC had become internationally recognised with South-South Cooperation training also being provided to Columbia and Laos and in future with Iraq.
The Chief of Provincial Department INAD Mr Barnabe Frederico, passed on greetings from his team, noting that the 20 senior officers from INAD made this the biggest group so far to attend training in Cambodia. He expressed his appreciation of the warm welcome from CMAC and the continuing support from JICA. He looked forward to sharing experiences in demining as well as sharing about customs and culture.
H.E. Mr Heng Ratana welcomed the Angolan delegates and hoped they would feel at home in Cambodia. He said that there were still millions of landmines and UXO in Cambodia and that CMAC was removing and destroying over 100,000 pieces per year. He wanted to share CMAC’s experience in how they have become more efficient at mine clearance and openly encouraged the INAD delegates to make use of standard operating procedures already developed by CMAC so that they can return to Angola with stronger weapons of knowledge and be successful together in landmine clearance. At the end of his speech,H.E. Heng Ratana declared open Phase II of the mine action management training with Angola.