International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) Intervention on status of implementation of the treaty in relation to victim assistance

(Wednesday 23 June 2004 Geneva, Switzerland) Presented by Becky Jordan Co-Chair ICBL Working Group on Victim Assistance to Standing Committee on Victim Assistance and Socio-Economic Reintegration (SC-VA)

I am going to be very brief because I want the presentation of Wendy Batson from the Lessons Learned Workshop to be what you hear and retain today. In my time, I will only restate the VA mantras.

Mantra #1, on the extent of the problem: Landmine survivors and other persons with disabilities are among the most impoverished group in every society. Most landmine survivors do not have access to some of the most basic needs, which by the way, are also their rights: food security, access to water, adequate housing, roads, a way to earn some income, health care, not to mention access to the lifelong rehab services many will need.

We still get caught up in the numbers question. The estimates of the total numbers of survivors are only estimates. And the numbers, accurate or not, say nothing about how we are doing in terms of meeting the need.

Your presentations do help to clarify the VA situation. You, States Parties, are getting more and more targeted in your reporting. From States Parties presentations to the SC; we know a lot about the people who are being helped, BUT we don’t often hear what the gaps are, what is MISSING in your countries, to what extent the needs are being met.

Documentation of the extent to which landmine survivors’ needs are not being met would help all of us in the committee know what to target in victim assistance. And...remember Form J? 11 mine-affected States Parties submitted Form J to report on VA in 2003; 16 non mine-affected States Parties also submitted Form J – some of these are about VA and some were not.

One of the most promoted data collection systems, IMSMA, while it could, it does not yet serve as the kind of ongoing surveillance systems that would feed into national planning mechanisms. And, IMSMA does not give us the total number of survivors in a country. So while IMSMA is good, it does not do much for victim assistance currently.

Victim assistance, in its context of being a part of the broader disability issue, is a long term business. The need never will disappear, its “target group” will just shift. So donors, if the programs you are considering funding do not fit into a long-term national plan for the development of services that are expected to be there forever, think twice about funding it.

Disability is a normal part of human life. Get used to it. Get to work on it. And plan to be at work on it forever.

Finally, when we talk about the extent of the problem, we know, anecdotally that existing programs are far from meeting the need. As an example, in Afghanistan, the director of the UNDP Comprehensive Disabled Afghan’s Program has stated that for every one disabled person that receives assistance, 100 more do not.

Mantra #2 on progress made: We have made progress. How can we quantify it? Looking at funding is one obvious way, but...we still don’t have a clear picture of total funding for mine victim assistance.

One bit of disappointing information is that the Japanese government, who has consistently voiced its support for victim assistance did not report any funding for victim assistance in 2003 in its most recent Article 7 report. It is the same for the United Kingdom and Sweden. They tell this committee that while supporting the idea of victim assistance they do not earmark funding and cannot tell us how much is provided to meet their obligations under Article 6.3. But we know that DFID supports Cambodia Trust, and Sweden supports CIREC in Colombia, even though this is never reported. Why can we not be more transparent?

An early analysis of global funding since 1999 indicates no significant increases for VA. We know the number of survivors does increase each year. We know that the needs have never been met, and yet, funding never goes up to meet these needs. (A detailed analysis of funding is being prepared for Nairobi.)

Another fairly straight-forward way to measure progress is to count plans of action. We look forward to hearing more about these today. And then again, dear donors, please listen for how these plans will be implemented, when plans exist, fund their implementation!

Mantra #3: Why aren’t things working like they should? Disability’s traditional slot in decision-makers’ minds is something that well-intentioned dabblers are free to deal with. In other words, those who should be responsible for rehab and reintegration for landmine survivors and all persons with disabilities have not assumed their responsibility and those who have assumed it, many NGOs can not do all that needs to be done and cannot sustain their efforts.

How can we make things better then? One simple idea is to make sure what happens here reaches the implementers in your country. Whether the relevant ministry officials need to come to Geneva or not is a question. For sure, they relevant ministry people should benefit from the discussions and developments that come from this Standing Committee. In a recent survey of VA implementers, it was found that almost none of the 20 or so surveyed had read, much less used the guidelines and recommendations that come from this SC. A similar survey of government counterparts would, I am fairly sure, bring the same results.

Simple idea #2: We need to get out of the VA-narrowness. In economic reintegration, for example, there are tons of manuals, programs, lessons learned. We don’t need to invent anything new for persons with disabilities.

Simple idea #3: Leverage corporate support for rehab and reintegration programs. Corporations are ready to hire persons with disabilities, and also to fund programs to show that they care about the communities they work in.

I will end here, because more is coming this afternoon.