EU makes major contribution to mine action

The European Union (EU) on Friday signed an agreement with the office of the UN Coordinator for Afghanistan to contribute US $3.44 million to the world body's Mine Action Programme for Afghanistan (MAPA). "This is an important contribution covering over 17 percent of the mine action programme budget for 2001," UN Coordinator for Afghanistan Erick de Mul told IRIN. Eblagh Kefayatullah, director of Afghan Technical Consultants (ATC), one of two NGOs whose programmes will benefit, under MAPA's guidance, said on Friday that the agency would use the funds to clear high priority mined and former battlefield areas in the central provinces of Ghazni, Kabul and Lorgar, as well as in the southern province of Kandahar. Speaking at Friday's signing ceremony, Kefayatullah said the contribution would help fund one ATC site office, with nine manual and two mechanical mine clearance teams, to clear 6,400,000 square metres of mined land. Its share of the funds would support 450 of ATC's 1,200 staff this year, he added. The other NGO to benefit from the contribution, the UK-based Halo Trust, is set to receive US $1.1 million for mine clearance of almost 18,000,000 square metres of mined areas in the northern provinces of Balkh, Baghlan, and Kunduz, as well as in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The funds would help it carry out both surveys and clearance operations, the NGO stated. Included in the US $3.44 million EU pledge was the provision for some US $450,000 for UNDP and UNOCHA to support prioritisation of mine action activities and provide quality assurance, auditing and reporting. "This is one of the initial contributions and hopefully a prelude to many more," MAPA manager Dan Kelly told IRIN. The programme has a budgeted funding requirement of US $ 20 million for 2001. "If they [the contributions] are successful this year, they [the mine clearance operations] may not have to slow down activities like they did last year, which will result in a decrease in mine victims and an increase in productive cleared land for the local population," he added. In the last quarter of 2000, however, MAPA was forced to scale Back operations due to a lack of funds. This brought a warning from the programme that such cutbacks would have immediate repercussions on communities inside Afghanistan. The Mine Action Programme for Afghanistan is the oldest and the Largest mine action programme in the world, and has resulted in the successful clearance of over 1.4 million explosives from former battlefields, agricultural land, roads and residential areas, according to the UN. Last year, mine awareness training reached over one million Afghans.