Project Background

Landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) continue to be an issue in Cambodia as there remains about 2,090 km² of contaminated land to be cleared since as of August 2019. It is a threat to human security and national development. The number of casualties has decreased from 4,320 in 1996 to 58 in 2018.

These issues hinder the country’s development as it poses difficulty in access to productive land, water sources, roads, and industrialization. Moreover, human capital development is being challenged as victims and their family go through emotional, financial and physical hardships.

UNDP works with the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority over the past 15 years to promote greater efficiency and accountability and to ensure that clearance resources support development priorities.

Key Expected Results

The project aims to strengthen the national regulation and coordination capacity in the demining sector, to support clearing of landmines and ERW, and to establish mine action performance monitoring system that measures human development outcomes and progress towards achieving a status of impact-free from mines/ERW in Cambodia.

Specifically, the project commits to deliver the following results: 

1. Mine action policies and strategic frameworks are aligned to national and sub-national sectorial policies and planning strategies;
   
   
2. Mine action performance monitoring system is developed and implemented that delivers quality evidence linking mine action and sustainable development outcomes/impact; and
   
   
3. At least 27 square kilometers of the total mine/ERW contaminated areas are cleared and released for productive use.

Achievements

[a] Ensuring mine action policies and strategic frameworks are aligned to national and sub-national sectoral policies and planning strategies

1. The National Mine Action Strategy (NMAS 2018-2025) and NMAS three-year implementation plan (2018-2020) were developed and launched.
2. The development of the second extension request under article 5 of the Anti-personnel Mine Ban Convention (APMBC) and the revision of the planning and prioritisation guidelines until 2019 was prepared.

[b] Developing a CMAA mine action programme performance monitoring system that would deliver quality evidence on sustainable development outcome/impact

1. Developed and approved the Performance Monitoring System for mine action and pilot-tested in two former contaminated villages in Banteay Meanchey province, trained the mine action planning unit personnel from MAPU, and transferred the collected data into the Information Management System of Mine Action (IMSMA) of CMAA.

[c] Clearing and releasing a minimum of 27 square kilometres of the total mine/ERW contaminated areas located in the most affected and poorest provinces

1. 58.57square kilometres of mines contaminated land cleared and released
2. 32,952 households consist of 149,302 people can safely access land cleared by the project.
3. 6,378 anti-personnel mines, 101 anti-tank mines, and 9,859 items of ERW found and destroyed.

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