Mine Awareness, or Mine
and Unexploded Ordnance Awareness Education (MAE) as it is otherwise known, is,
in its purest form, a community-level education program that seeks to provide
(or generate) viable alternatives to high-risk behavior to populations living or
working in, or travelling through, mine-affected
areas.[20] It works best on the
basis of two-way information exchange, learning from communities how they
survive the daily threat of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO), and working
cooperatively to identify how the risk of death and injury can be minimized.
Mine awareness is frequently confused with public information about the effects
of mines and UXO. Such information campaigns are extremely valuable but do not
in a strict sense constitute mine/UXO awareness programs.
In fact, the term “mine awareness” is a bit of a misnomer since
the need for community education applies to all unexploded devices, including
booby-traps, cluster bomblets and other UXO, not just antipersonnel and antitank
mines. Moreover, it is less frequent than one might expect that people are
“unaware” of the danger of mines. In many
situations,[21] people know or
suspect that an area is mined but go into or through it intentionally. The
reasons for this are various: curiosity or adventure seeking, a feeling of
invincibility or inevitability, or in most cases just economic or survival
pressures. If the alternative to entering the mined field or forest is
starvation, community members must sooner or later run the gauntlet of death and
serious injury. Seen in this light, the tendency to transfer information such as
“don’t go!” or “don’t touch!” from the
“experts” to the “unknowing” is likely to enjoy little
success.
Key Actors
Among international organizations (IOs) and NGOs,
the main players operationally are Handicap International
(HI),[22] the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mines Advisory Group (MAG), Norwegian
People’s Aid (NPA) and Rädda Barnen. There are a substantial number
of other international and local NGOs involved in implementing mine awareness
programs. Within the UN system, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is the
focal point and leading actor; the New York office of the UN Mine Action Service
(UNMAS) has a person dedicated to mine awareness.
Country Coverage
There are currently mine awareness programs of
varying size and effectiveness in at least the following countries and areas:
Afghanistan, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia,
Colombia, Croatia, El Salvador, Guatemala, northern Iraq, Kosovo, Laos, Lebanon,
Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Yemen. Local or small-scale
initiatives are also running in Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia (Abkhazia), Swaziland,
and Uganda, among others.
But despite this seemingly impressive list of mine awareness programs (MAPs),
Landmine Monitor researchers have identified a number of other places where mine
awareness may be needed. These include Burundi, Chad, Chechnya, Chile, the
Democratic Republic of Congo,[23]
the Golan Heights,[24]
Jordan,[25]
Iran,[26] Burma
(Myanmar),[27] and
Vietnam.[28] Of course, feasibility
studies have to be carried out to confirm whether or not a program in a given
context is needed and can be safely and effectively implemented in the
prevailing circumstances.[29]
A number of new mine awareness programs are in the process of being
initiated. Following the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon, a number of
NGOs, including Save the Children Sweden and Save the Children US, were
preparing to implement programs in the former security zone, as landmines
continued to claim victims.[30] On
the other hand, in Sri Lanka, the UN Development Program (UNDP) mine awareness
program in Jaffna was suspended in April 2000 because of the upsurge in fighting
on the peninsula.
Needs Assessment
Any MAP should be initiated with a detailed needs
assessment as set out in the International Guidelines on Mine and UXO Awareness
Education Programs adopted by the UN system in May
1999.[31] The appropriate needs
assessment is the responsibility of each and every organization operationally
involved in mine awareness.[32]
Sadly, such assessments have frequently not been done
well,[33] and sometimes not at
all.[34] Without baseline data, it
is almost impossible to plan an effective communication strategy that reaches
those in danger with messages and techniques that are both culturally
appropriate and targeted to the specific risk behavior. Thus, a needs assessment
for mine awareness should consider the severity of the problem from a
humanitarian point of view, analyze high-risk behavior and groups, and identify
linguistic, cultural or logistical factors that will influence the success of a
potential MAP.[35]
There are times when a MAP has been initiated primarily because funding was
available, notwithstanding the actual needs of the country or region. Kosovo is
an example where, while clearly mine awareness is needed, funding availability
may have led to excess, relative to needs in other locations. Once the ethnic
Albanian refugees returned to the province, a plethora of NGOs became involved
in mine awareness programs.[36] By
early spring 2000, organizations involved in mine awareness still numbered
around a dozen, potentially making Kosovo the most “mine aware”
region in the world.
In terms of operational focus, many mine awareness programs concentrate the
bulk of time and resources on school children, even though they may form only a
small percentage of the number of mine
victims,[37] and are potentially at
limited risk in many contexts. In Croatia, for instance, considerable funding
has been directed to conducting mine awareness in schools even though no
children were killed by mines in 1999 and only three out of the total of
fifty-one victims (i.e., killed and injured) were
children.[38] Researchers noted a
similar focus in Laos and Vietnam, despite available data demonstrating that
other target groups were far more in need of preventive education.
Methodology
Concern remains as to the pedagogical basis for
much of the methodology used to implement MAPs around the world. Although often
advertised as “community-based,” “participatory,”
“interactive,” or employing “child-to-child” techniques,
it appears that the typical mine awareness program relies on one-way
presentations and/or mass media to get its message across. Such an approach
takes little notice of the skills and knowledge already existing in the
community, frequently fails to target those most at risk, and is unlikely to
have anything other than a negligible long-term impact on casualty
rates.[39]
Most mine awareness resources tend to be devoted to the production and
dissemination of various communications media, such as television/video, radio,
posters, T-shirts, and comic books. According to the Landmine Monitor researcher
for Rwanda, as much as US $100,000 has been spent on airing mine awareness
messages on Rwandan radio, an astonishing amount in such a small
country.[40] Yet, the effectiveness
of these media approaches is open to question. In March 2000, UNICEF announced
its intention to commission a multi-country study of mine awareness media and
messages from the Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining; as of
this writing, the study has not yet been initiated. An HI study on lessons
learned using mine-risk education tools in six countries is eagerly awaited.
Most attention, however, has been focused on the Superman comic book, with
concerns being widely expressed as to both its technical accuracy and cultural
appropriateness. The comic book has apparently been used to advantage as one of
a number of media items in Guatemala but overall the reaction has been extremely
negative.[41] As a result, the
original version produced for Bosnia-Herzegovina has now been withdrawn from
distribution; a Spanish version was not distributed in
Colombia;[42] and a version planned
for Mozambique appears to have been shelved, at least for now. Independent
testing of the Superman comic book in Kosovo concluded that it was suitable for
children in the 10-14 age group but not for children in the 7-9 age group, who
might infer incorrect and dangerous messages. A controlled distribution in the
classroom for the elder age group was recommended as part of the school mine
awareness education curriculum. At the beginning of June 2000, the ICBL sent a
letter to UNICEF Executive Director, Carol Bellamy, to formally “request
UNICEF to openly address the cultural and technical concerns” raised by
the Superman comic book.
Consonant with a frequent preoccupation to protect children from landmines
and UXO, “child-to-child” training entered the mine awareness
vocabulary with a vengeance in 1999, with a number of organizations claiming to
be incorporating “child-to-child” methodology into their awareness
programs, most notably in
Kosovo.[43] In a number of
instances, though, it seems that the component was actually little more than
“kids teaching other kids,” a far cry from the participatory
methodology delineated by the Child to Child Trust in London which developed the
concept.[44] Yet in a context where
teaching is typically authoritarian and learning is by rote, child to child
techniques can be liberating and empowering both for the children and for their
teachers; they are, however, labor intensive as training can take a considerable
time.
But more participatory mine awareness is being practiced as well as preached
in a number of countries. The ICRC implements well-thought-out community level
mine awareness programs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo, each with an
integral data-gathering element that assists in the national mine action
coordination process; in Kosovo the communities themselves decide on their local
mine awareness volunteer whose task is to pass on valuable information to the
community and also update the regional mine awareness teams with relevant
information on incidents or discoveries of mines or cluster bomblets.
Data Gathering and Analysis, Integration and Coordination
As the mine action community begins to recognize
the role of socio-economic data and analysis in planning mine action programs,
it is clear that mine awareness should be looking to exploit its comparative
advantages. In its capacity as a community-level initiative, mine awareness
should, in theory at least, generate a large amount of precious quantitative and
qualitative data that can help to prioritize mine clearance and marking,
identify unfulfilled needs for mine victim
assistance,[45] and provide
information in support of the prohibition of anti-personnel mines and its
implementation.
Community mapping exercises, for instance, involve a community liaison
officer working with different target groups to elicit the impact of mines and
UXO on daily life and identify existing community approaches and coping
mechanisms. This data can help in the prioritization of other mine action tasks.
In this regard, Kosovo is possibly the first time that mine awareness teams have
been able to provide direct input into the prioritization process, thanks to the
weekly mine action meetings held in the different KFOR sectors around the
province. But the need to strengthen the IMSMA component on mine awareness is
clear—this was one of the recommendations by ICBL to the March 2000 SCE
meeting mentioned below.
Training and Staff Selection
In 1999 and early 2000, UNICEF was instrumental in
developing pre-service training modules for both mine awareness program managers
and community mine awareness facilitators. This is seemingly the first time
that such comprehensive training packages have been prepared. Although primarily
aimed at UNICEF programs and program managers, they have a much wider validity.
It is intended that regional training workshops be held over the next two
years—this process in itself should succeed in widening the net of
available expertise, thereby strengthening competence.
Allied to training is the issue of staff selection which is of obvious
importance, especially for the community mine awareness facilitators who will be
the direct link with the community. In the past, there was a tendency to favor
people with a military or technical background. It is clear, however, that this
can be counter-productive as mine experts can rarely resist the temptation to
show off how much they know about weapons. Thus, in Kosovo, KFOR has been
implementing a “soldier to child” program in schools around the
province; the UN Mine Action Coordination Center has been trying to end this
practice. In Laos, as well as other countries, U.S. Army Psychological
Operations personnel have been involved in training mine awareness teams; it is
at least questionable how appropriate such a military-style approach is to a
community liaison program such as mine awareness. In the words of the Landmine
Monitor researcher for Nicaragua, “soldiers aren’t
teachers.”
Monitoring and Evaluation
Given the amount of funding poured into mine
awareness (estimated to be between US $5 million and US $10 million each year),
it is somewhat surprising that donors have not been more insistent on being
shown substantive proof of
efficacy.[46] To date, operational
efficiency and effectiveness has largely been evidenced by the quantity of
posters printed and the number of individuals “briefed” or
“reached.” Although valuable information for the program manager in
and of itself, this tells little of the extent to which behavior has been
changed or safety information learned and internalized.
Likewise, the mine action community at large (especially organizations
involved in mine clearance) need to be shown that not only is there a genuine
role for mine awareness within mine action, but that the role is an essential
one, enhancing the effectiveness of the other three “pillars” of
mine action: mine clearance (including survey and marking), mine victim
assistance, and mine ban advocacy.
Organizations are beginning to realize the importance of evaluating
the worth of MAPs. UNICEF has commissioned detailed evaluations of its mine
awareness programs in Angola and Cambodia, for example, and future evaluations
are planned in Ethiopia and Laos; in 1997, a national evaluation of mine
awareness in Afghanistan was conducted by the Canadian organization, CIET; and
Rädda Barnen has begun an evaluation of the program it supports in Yemen,
and an internal evaluation of mine awareness in schools in Bosnia-Herzegovina is
planned to take place in the fall of 2000. However many programs simply carry
over from year to year with little attempt to be accountable to the communities
they claim to serve. With a view to developing international guidelines for the
monitoring and evaluation of mine awareness programs, as recommended by ICBL and
requested by the Standing Committee of Experts on Victim Assistance,
Socio-Economic Reintegration and Mine Awareness in March 2000, UNICEF is
planning to circulate a first draft before the end of 2000 prior to a
large-scale technical consultation on the issue in
2001.[47]
Future Challenges
The overall challenge for 2001 is to speed up the
tortuously slow process of professionalizing mine awareness. This demands
commitment on the part of all organizations involved—none has much cause
for complacency.
HI’s study of lessons learnt in mine-risk education programs in six
countries should give a useful indication of possible reorientation in mine
awareness. Within the context of mine action, ICBL’s call for UNMAS to
study the integration of mine awareness and victim assistance should be speedily
acted upon. UNICEF, for its part, has spent considerable effort in ensuring the
adoption of international guidelines for mine awareness and the preparation of
training modules to effectively operationalize the guidelines. Guidance on how
to monitor and evaluate mine awareness and how to field-test materials, media
and messages would be extremely beneficial, as would minimum international
standards for mine awareness programs and the accreditation of competent
organizations.
It appears that mine awareness programs may be needed in Chile, the
Democratic Republic of Congo, the Golan Heights, Jordan, Iran, Burma (Myanmar),
and Vietnam; where they do not exist, in-depth needs assessments should be
undertaken by competent agencies at the earliest possible juncture. Finally,
efforts must continue to try to strengthen coordination and integration with the
other pillars of mine action and other emergency or developmental activities,
such as water and sanitation, food security initiatives, or HIV/AIDS education
programs. The days of the stand-alone mine awareness program must surely be
numbered.
[20] The term also includes programs or
briefings for humanitarian field staff working in mine-affected countries. In
this regard, UNMAS and CARE International are preparing a field handbook
intended for concerned non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and United Nations
staff. [21] Refugee/IDP situations tend to
be an exception. [22] According to Hugues
Laurenge in HI France, HI implements or supports “mine-risk
education” in eight countries: Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Ethiopia (in the border refugee camps along the border with northern Somalia),
Kosovo, Mozambique, Senegal, and Thailand (in refugee camps along the borders
with Cambodia and Burma. He states that all of these programs include
data-gathering, the use of media tools and instruction. Email correspondence of
15 June 2000. [23] An UNMAS assessment
mission is planned for the DRC if and when the security situation improves.
[24] A proposal for a local mine awareness
program in the Golan Heights has been drafted by the Ramullah-based NGO, Al
Haq. [25] A “child-to-child”
program is apparently planned for the country. See Landmine Monitor Report
2000—Jordan. [26] An UNMAS assessment
mission was originally planned for Iran in 2000 although it now appears that
this will not take place. [27] Somewhat
strangely, the local Red Cross society claims that a mine awareness program is
not necessary both because there have been no victims (clearly an inaccurate
statement) and because peace deals have been signed with most of the insurgents
pitted against the military regime in the country. Information provided by
Landmine Monitor researcher for Burma
(Myanmar). [28] Although a national needs
assessment for mine awareness has not been carried out in the country, there
have already been local and international mine awareness initiatives in certain
provinces, and the Landmine Monitor researcher for Vietnam firmly believes that
mine awareness should be carried out in all provinces.
[29] For example, UNMAS conducted an
assessment mission to Sierra Leone in February 2000 and concluded that the
limited mine and UXO problem did not justify a nationwide awareness campaign.
See the UNMAS home page, <http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/mine>, for a copy
of the mission report. [30] Kananfani, S.,
“NGOs race to alert South to peril of mines,” Daily Star, 1 June
2000. [31] For example, UNICEF conducted a
needs assessment mission for mine awareness in Chad in June
2000. [32] Obviously needs assessments can
be carried out jointly; indeed, often this is the most effective way to
proceed. [33] In this regard, it is not
enough even for locally-based organizations to assert that they know who needs
mine awareness training; without systematic information gathering, a program is
unlikely to accurately target those most at
risk. [34] For example, Colombia and Croatia
still have not undertaken a needs assessment for mine awareness; nor apparently
has Afghanistan, which has one of the longest running mine awareness programs.
Information provided by Landmine Monitor researchers for Afghanistan, Colombia
and Croatia. [35] Of course, agencies should
always be alert to the danger of “over-surveying.” The community
should be considered a partner, not a guinea pig. In a number of places, such as
Kosovo, mine victims are tired of being asked the same questions time after time
by different organizations and different
journalists. [36] Mine awareness, as with
other mine action programs in Kosovo, is coordinated by the UN Mine Action
Co-ordination Center, which requires all implementing organizations to follow
its Best Practice Guidelines for Mine/UXO Awareness Activities, based on the
International Guidelines for Mine and Unexploded Ordnance Awareness Education
developed by UNICEF on behalf of the United Nations
system. [37] Such is not the case where
contamination is largely unexploded ordnance, especially cluster bomblets; here,
children are often 50% or more of the total number of
victims. [38] Information provided by the
Landmine Monitor researcher for Croatia, 15 May
2000. [39] Indeed, mine awareness badly done
is worse than useless, it is potentially life-threatening. Particular concerns
were expressed about mine awareness messages being disseminated in Colombia,
that could encourage children to move around mined areas. Information provided
by Diana Roa Castro, Landmine Monitor researcher for
Colombia. [40] The choice of radio as the
main media for disseminating mine awareness messages appears sound, though, as
it is the most popular means of communication in the country, and there are no
local languages to impede understanding. Information provided by the Landmine
Monitor researcher for Rwanda. [41]
Information provided by Landmine Monitor Researcher for Guatemala, 16 May
2000. [42] The decision not to distribute
the comic book in Colombia followed a letter from the Colombian Campaign to Ban
Landmines to the UNICEF Representative in Bogotá. Information provided by
Diana Roa Castro, Landmine Monitor Researcher, 16 May
2000. [43] Concerns have also been expressed
about so-called “child-to-child” mine awareness in Colombia.
Information provided by Diana Roa Castro, Landmine Monitor researcher for
Colombia. [44] Child-to-child programs, that
were developed as a more participatory alternative to public health education,
give children the opportunity to explore subjects without the framework of the
traditionally authoritarian and disempowering methods of teaching practiced in
many countries around the world. In child-to-child initiatives, the teacher is
involved more as a facilitator to guide the learning process than the central
fulcrum around whom all wisdom revolves. Training teachers and instructors in
these methods is a time-consuming (and therefore expensive) procedure. For
details of the Child-to-Child Trust work on landmines see for instance Land Mine
Awareness, an activity sheet available from its offices in London:
Child-to-Child Trust, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL,
United Kingdom, Tel: (+44-207) 612 6648; Fax: (+44-207) 612 6645; E-mail:
c.scotchmer@ioe.ac.uk. [45] The mine
awareness program in Yemen supported by Rädda Barnen (Save the Children
Sweden) has begun a pilot project using the national Mine Awareness Association
to conduct a survey on mine victims and their
needs. [46] To counter the assertion
sometimes made, for instance, that the best mine awareness is a mine
incident. [47] UNICEF contribution to
Landmine MonitorReport 2000—Appendices.
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