Attachments
Building a Safer World: Safe Ground, Safe Steps, Safe Home
Introduction
UNMAS has repeatedly adapted to the operational, security and political constraints since it was established 25 years ago, and 2022 was no exception. Despite tumultuous developments in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, and Ukraine, and uncertainty in funding, UNMAS removed and destroyed tens of thousands of items of explosive ordnance, improved the safety of millions of people, strengthened the national capacity of partner governments, and reduced the threat and impact of explosive ordnance attacks against United Nations peace operations personnel.
The UNMAS Strategic Plan aims to maximise UNMAS contributions to the successful implementation of United Nations peace operations mandates and the delivery of humanitarian assistance consistent with the United Nations Mine Action Strategy 2019-2023 and the United Nations goal of a world free of mines, explosive remnants of war (ERW), including cluster munitions, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Safer for Civilians
Explosive ordnance contamination continued to endanger the lives of civilians, killing and maiming indiscriminately; hampering the rehabilitation of public infrastructure, including schools and roads; constituting a major obstacle to the safe movement of civilians and return of displaced populations to their homes; undermining the safe delivery of humanitarian aid and limiting safe access to services; and worsening food insecurity.
Damage to and destruction of homes, essential infrastructure and places of worship continued to compound civilian suffering. While explosive hazards harm indiscriminately, children continued to be at exceptionally high risk of death or injury.
Displaced populations are particularly vulnerable to explosive ordnance threats because of their movement in unfamiliar areas, on highly contaminated roads, and lack of awareness of dangers hidden in the rubble of their homes when returning home. In response, UNMAS liaised with displaced persons, collected data to identify dangerous areas and provided explosive ordnance risk education (EORE) to people living in contaminated communities.
UNMAS is working with the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on Solutions to Internal Displacement Robert Piper, and he has focused on 16 priority countries, 11 are where UNMAS is working.
Safer for Peacekeepers
Explosive ordnance incidents, which include IED attacks, killed 16 peacekeepers and injured 72. Compared to 2021, there was a slight rise in the number of fatalities and a small drop in the number of injured peacekeepers. Many of the explosive devices, including the one that killed three peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR), were victim-activated and, therefore, indiscriminate. In Mali alone, there were 163 explosive incidents, of which 46 directly targeted personnel of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).
There is clear evidence that peacekeepers are more likely to survive attacks when properly trained and equipped. In MINUSMA, certain contingents have encountered explosive incidents without suffering a single fatality, while others sustained casualties.
Against this backdrop, UNMAS contributed to the UN Secretary-General’s Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative and its seven A4P+ priorities, emphasising the “capabilities and mindsets” workstream. In CAR, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Mali, UNMAS developed strategies to respond to the changing nature of the explosive ordnance threat in addition to building the national capacity in weapons and ammunition management intended to advance the political processes by supporting the extension of capable and accountable state authority.
UNMAS prioritises implementation of the Independent Strategic Review (ISR) of the United Nations Response to Explosive Ordnance Threats (S/2021/1042), which outlines over 80 cross-cutting and mission-specific recommendations to ensure peacekeepers' readiness, capacity and capability to operate within a high-threat explosive ordnance environment.
To synchronise collaboration between Member States, United Nations Headquarters and field operations in implementing the ISR recommendations and to monitor progress, the United Nations established the EO/IED Threat Mitigation Working Group, co-chaired by UNMAS and the Uniformed Capabilities Support Division of the Department of Support (DOS).
UNMAS focused on upstream and downstream measures to increase police/troop-contributing countries (P/TCC) preparedness, including by adapting and refining pre-deployment and in-mission training of P/TCCs; supporting training validation of national and regional training centres to prepare current and future TCCs in collaboration with the Office of Military Affairs (OMA) and the Integrated Training Service (ITS); and expanding in-mission training such as in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) focused on creating search and detect capability. In addition, the Service provided expertise to mission-level counter-IED working groups to develop and implement responsive and preventative measures such as expanding in-mission skills training and developing forensic exploitation capabilities.
The UNMAS IED Threat Mitigation Advisory Team (TMAT), in support of OMA and the DOS, addressed gaps in the capacity of peacekeepers' contingents by reviewing Statement of Unit Requirements and Contingent Owned Equipment lists to ensure adequate capabilities were available to high-risk missions. The Entebbe-based IED TMAT Mobile Training Team collaborated with OMA and ITS to support the validation of national and regional training centres preparing current and future troops.
Safer for Humanitarians
The Global Protection Cluster (GPC) Mine Action Area of Responsibility (MA AoR) is a coordination platform led by UNMAS to ensure that the work of global, regional, and local mine action actors in humanitarian contexts is timely, coherent, and effective. In 2022, the mine action sector reached over 8 million people across 18 humanitarian emergencies with mine clearance, risk education, and victim assistance, thus saving lives, limbs and livelihoods.
As conflict surged in Ukraine, at the request of OCHA and the United Nations Department for Safety and Security (UNDSS), UNMAS deployed an expert to support response planning and the opening of humanitarian corridors. UNMAS expertise was called upon again, this time by the Secretary-General, to propose solutions for the sea mines blocking the Black Sea, helping to facilitate the export of food and fertiliser from Ukraine and Russia to millions facing acute food insecurity, including in the Horn of Africa and Yemen.
In response to the dire humanitarian situation resulting from the conflict in Ethiopia, UNMAS conducted rapid explosive risk assessments at sites of humanitarian interventions and along humanitarian corridors in Afar, Amhara, and Tigray regions. In Afghanistan, UNMAS carried out technical surveys in the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Kunduz and Uruzgan, sharing information on contamination with humanitarian responders from communities which were previously not accessible and off-limits due to conflict.
Under the MA AoR, UNMAS led efforts to strengthen the effectiveness of mine action responses in collaboration with other sectors, for example, through information exchange on integrating housing, land and property (HLP) rights in mine action. Extensive technical support was provided to new MA AoR coordinators in Myanmar and Ukraine; thirteen mine action professionals benefited from the Specialization Programme in Protection Coordination jointly run with the GPC and other AoRs (child protection, gender-based violence, and HLP); UNMAS participated in regional technical workshops in Dakar, Nairobi and Istanbul to facilitate peer to peer exchanges; and, under UNMAS leadership, the Mine Action Area of Responsibility Strategy 2022-2024, was rolled out in 17 countries.