MEDIA RELEASE
Released By:
Sullivan
As Australia's Special Representative on Demining, I am pleased that the Washington Conference on Global Humanitarian Demining resulted in real progress towards meeting the challenges of eliminating the threat of land mines.
The Conference's significant achievements included agreement on methodology to realistically assess both the size and nature of the land mine problem, as well as clear objectives for demining activities - including integrating assistance for land mine victims - with one United Nations agency to coordinate all these aspects.
Representatives from 21 countries, 23 non-government and private sector organisations, and 10 UN agencies attended the three-day conference.
One of the major achievements was unanimous agreement that the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) would both coordinate all related activities of relevant UN agencies, and act as the major source of information on mine action activity for related organisations throughout the world.
UNMAS will this week start on the first of its country assessments. These assessments will aim to provide a broad, up-to-date picture of the scope of the problem - including social and economic concerns - in each particular country.
Australia has long held the view that each country affected by land mines should be assisted to develop and plan its own demining programs. I was particularly pleased that the building of indigenous capacity and ownership of mine action programs - an integral part of all Australian sponsored programs - received strong support at the Conference.
A systematic effort to clarify data on the magnitude of the land mine problem was another major initiative, giving hope that the scourge of land mines can be removed in years rather than the decades previously asserted.
Delegates agreed that while previous estimates claimed that 80 to 110 million land mines are scattered around the world, a more realistic figure would be 60 to 70 million - still an unacceptable amount.
Denying people access to their land inhibits countries' opportunities for future development. Given that nearly all the world's land mines are in developing countries, the impact of this inhibition on development means that poor people are the most seriously affected.
The simple fear that land mines may exist prevents productive land being farmed, stops children attending schools, and limits access by the sick to health facilities. The Conference therefore concluded that the best indicator for assessing the extent of the problem would be to calculate the number of square kilometres that land mines render unusable.
Most importantly, the Conference overwhelmingly recognised the importance of integrating assistance to land mine victims into mine action plans.
Conference delegates welcomed President Clinton's challenge that, with better coordination and on-the-ground involvement, these terrible weapons should be eliminated by the year 2010.
Australia is playing its part to realise this ambition. We shall contribute $100 million for demining and related activities over the 10-year period to the year 2005.
Media contacts:
Kristen Pratt (Mrs Sullivan's office) 02 6277 4381/0412 313 665 Carol Haffke (AusAID) 02 6206 4966/0417 683 767