Albania humanitarian mine action
TIRANA, Aug 10 – DanChurchAid, Denmark has been involved in humanitarian land mine and cluster munition clearance operations in Albania since 2002. As such, DCA has the distinction of being the longest serving operator in the mine action field in Albania.
The DCA programme in Albania employs 102 national staff organized into eight clearance teams (five manual teams, two Battle Area Clearance teams and one Technical Survey team) and a small administrative and support team (medics, administrators and logistics staff).
The programme is almost completely managed by national staff with just one international staff member (the Programme Manager) to provide guidance and oversight as necessary.
At the start of 2009, there was approximately 850,000 sqm of mine and cluster munitions contaminated land left to clear in Albania. This broke down into 14 minefields and 11 cluster munitions sites. DCA had cleared seven minefields and six cluster munitions sites by the end of July. The programme will be complete by December 2009 and there is very good progress towards ensuring all contaminated areas will be cleared by that time.
Planning is underway for the transition of the demining staff from humanitarian mine action tasks back to the mainstream civilian work force. This transition will occur once the operations have been completed. A number of the DCA national staff are being considered for deployment to other DCA humanitarian mine action programmes globally.
DCA has been developing a system where the long term effects of the clearance activities can be gauged. A Post Impact Survey is conducted, normally once the land has been handed back to the local inhabitants and has been in use for about 12 to 18 months. The Post Impact Survey has multiple uses: it allows DCA to judge the validity of the original priority that was laced upon clearing that particular area; it permits the estimate of the socio economic benefit to the local community from the clearance activities, and; it allows a more complete reporting system back to the donors so they can see how their contribution has helped Albania. The Post Impact Survey has been developed by DCA Headquarters in Copenhagen and in trials in Albania and other DCA mine action programmes. All in all, 2009 will be a very successful year for DCA Albania.
