Landmines kill or injure thousands of innocent victims each year in over 80 mine-affected countries around the world. Landmine Monitor reports that there are between 300,000 and 400,000 mine survivors globally. Most mine victims live in the world’s poorest countries. Local health structures are seriously challenged to meet their needs. As well, injured children require long-term care: as they grow, prostheses must be refitted regularly. While the threat to human safety remains a constant, human casualties are just the tip of the iceberg.

Landmines pose a serious obstacle to development. The negative impact of landmines on sustainable development, poverty reduction, and human security are well documented. The most obvious impediments are restrictions to accessing safe land for agriculture in rural communities, and compromising access to schools or water sources. However, landmines also limit post-conflict resettlement, undermine efforts aimed at peacebuilding, and increase the burden on national health care and other services.

A Global Response: The Mine Ban Treaty

On December 3, 1997, 122 states met in Ottawa and signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, commonly known as the Ottawa Convention.

The convention was negotiated in less than one year and entered into force on March 1, 1999. It was the first effective and legally binding mechanism to address the global call to ban landmines and for a humanitarian response to their victims.

Since the Ottawa Convention came into force, initiatives by States Parties to the convention, the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and others, have all continued to support the ratification process and the universalization and implementation of the convention.

There is a clear indication of international commitment to a mine-free world. As of April 2006, 151 states have formally agreed to be bound by the convention through ratifications. Further, several governments have signed but not yet ratified the convention. | Ottawa Convention Status Report

Under Article 1 of the convention, States Parties undertake to “never under any circumstances” use, produce, develop, stockpile, or transfer landmines. States Parties also agree to destroy stockpiles under their jurisdiction within four years of ratification. To date, more than 37 million stockpiled mines have been destroyed. In addition, mine-affected states agree to clear mines in areas under their control within 10 years of ratification. Three previously mine-affected States Parties–Costa Rica, Djibouti, and Honduras–have reported completing clearance and have declared themselves to be mine-free.

For those States Parties in a position to provide assistance, Article 6 calls on them to help provide mine clearance, care for mine victims, and mine-risk education to exposed populations. Canada, as a State Party to the convention, lends assistance to other States Parties to help them fulfil their obligations under the convention.

Since the signing of the Ottawa Convention in December 1997, Canada has contributed over $200 million to support global mine action. The Canadian Landmine Fund, which accounts for $172 million of this amount, was created as a dedicated fund to focus action on the landmine problem. This fund represents an inter-departmental collaboration between the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Foreign Affairs Canada (FAC), and the Department of National Defence (DND).

CIDA is an important global player in the fight to end the suffering caused by landmines. Canada is present in all parts of the world and most visibly in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Colombia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Senegal, Sudan, and Tajikistan.

The Mine Action Unit serves as the coordinating body for mine action at CIDA. It is responsible for managing the CIDA portion of the Canadian Landmine Fund. The unit also provides leadership within CIDA on mine-action policy, strategy, and programming.

The CIDA mandate in mine action includes three main areas of intervention: victim assistance, mine risk education, and humanitarian demining.

Victim assistance refers to all care and rehabilitation activities designed to meet the immediate and long-term needs of landmine survivors, their families, and mine-affected communities. These activities include: first aid; emergency and continuing medical care; physical rehabilitation, prostheses, and mobility devices; psychological and social support; employment and economic integration; and legislation and public awareness.

Mine-risk education refers to educational activities aimed at reducing the risk of injury from mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO). These activities include raising awareness and promoting behavioural change through public information campaigns, education and training, and liaison with communities. Often this is aimed at people returning to their land after periods of war.

Humanitarian demining aims to clear land so that civilians can return to their homes and their everyday routines without fear. This means that all the mines affecting the places where ordinary people live must be cleared, and that citizens’ safety in these areas must be guaranteed. Demining includes: technical surveys, mapping, minefield marking, clearance operations, post-clearance documentation, and quality assurance throughout the process in keeping with internationally-established standards. Clearance operations rely on manual clearance by trained deminers using metal detectors; mine detection dogs to detect the presence of explosives in the ground; and mechanical clearance.

Recent thinking by the international community has expanded the definition of mine action. It is becoming clear that existing platforms do not adequately bring together everyone from the humanitarian and development communities who is concerned about mines and other remnants of war. There is a growing recognition that to sustain the successes of the last 10 years, integrating mine action into broader development concepts is essential. This idea gathered momentum during the First Review Conference at the Nairobi Summit on a Mine-Free World in 2004. From the summit emerged the Nairobi Action Plan 2005-2009, representing a consensus among mine-affected countries and donors to integrate mine action into development planning and support. As well, the UN Secretary-General’s 2005 report, In Larger Freedom, points to the debilitating effect of mines and other weapons on the development of a country, reflecting the understanding adopted by other agencies such as the World Bank. Conventions under negotiation, such as Protocol V, Explosive Remnants of War, of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), as well as a convention on the rights of people with disabilities, also advance this understanding.

In many respects, the work of the past decade in mine action offers only a glimpse of the possibilities ahead. The knowledge and experience gained from applying the Ottawa Convention is leading to a greater level of coherence and effectiveness on all sorts of other development issues, including the parallel issues of explosive remnants of war and of small arms and light weapons.

Effective partnerships in mine action include:

• the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS), which coordinates all aspects of mine action within the UN system, providing assistance in the context of humanitarian emergencies and international standards setting;
• the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which has a mine-action section to address the socio-economic consequences of landmines and UXO, and which supports national and local capacity to eliminate the long-term consequence of mine contamination;
• the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which is the UN focal point in mine-risk education and the protection of children and their support systems;
• the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has assisted victims of conflicts and wars for over 140 years; and
• the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD), which works on humanitarian mine action through operational assistance, research, and support for the implementation of the Ottawa Convention. GICHD is an independent foundation funded by some 18 governments.
• Organization of American States (OAS) Mine Action Program

• the Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief (CPAR), which works in Uganda in injury prevention and survivor support;
• the Canadian International Demining Corps (CIDC), which assists national demining authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in building their national capacity for clearance operations;
• Garneau International, of the Collège François-Xavier-Garneau, which provides technical expertise in community-based rehabilitation in Laos;
• Collège Montmorency, which transfers expertise in the production and use of prostheses and orthotics in the region of Casamance, Senegal;
• CAMEO Security, the Canadian Association for Mine and Explosive Ordnance Security, which works in Sudan training demining teams to clear their homeland of mines and UXO;
• Oxfam-Québec, which works with the Cambodian War Amputees Rehabilitation Society to provide vocational training to survivors;
• World Vision Canada, which improves livelihood opportunities in Cambodia and Uganda; and
• the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), which contributes funding to Handicap International to clear mines in key areas, such as around schools and water wells, in Mozambique.

• Landmine Monitor Reports
• Canadian Landmine Fund Report 2003-2004

• Mines Action Canada
• International Campaign to Ban Landmines