Printed from: www.icbl.org/Treaty/MBT/Annual-Meetings/7MSP/Old/IntlAssistance
Delivered by Ian Doucet, Landmine Monitor Final Editor
Thank you, Madame President, for this opportunity speak on the subject of assistance and cooperation, the subject of Article 6 of the treaty.
International assistance and cooperation has been an essential element of maintaining the progress of the Mine Ban Treaty. The Landmine Monitor initiative of the ICBL goes to great lengths to identify and report the most accurate annual contributions to mine action by donors, both States Parties and others, and by mine-affected countries themselves.
The collection of funding data is an ongoing process. If delegations here are aware of funding items not included in LM, please let us know. Corrections and clarifications can be made in next year’s report, and more immediately on the website.
We encourage SPs to report in Form J of the A7 reports their calendar year mine action funding as fully as possible. In many cases so far, LM research has identified additional funding which is then verified and added in to the donor totals.
Obtaining accurate, consistent and comprehensive funding data is not easy. Lack of transparency, variations in reporting period and level of detail pose particular difficulties when trying to draw together all funding elements into a few global figures. Landmine Monitor findings on mine action funding are based on what donors tell us they have contributed to mine action, what recipient governments - & some mine action NGOs - say they have received, what mine affected countries appeal for via the UN Portfolio & other processes & then how much of that they receive, and what UN sources and funding channels such as the UNVTF, ITF and the increasing number of specialised funds such as in Iraq say they have received and distributed. And they all provide different data ! The LM team uses all these sources, and reports these different elements identifiably..
In 2005, Landmine Monitor research found that a total of $376 million was contributed by donors for mine action. This is international – “external” - funding of mine action. It includes estimates of the value of in-kind assistance, where these are available (non-monetary assistance in the form of personnel, machinery, equipment etc).
Our reporting of this international funding total each year addresses the Article 6 obligation on all States Parties to provide assistance where possible.
The 2005 total of $376m was $23m less than the previous year. But it was also the second highest annual total, the second highest after 2004. The main significance of the decrease in 2005 may not be the size of the decrease – 2004 was probably an exceptional year for a number of reasons – no, the significance is that this decrease interrupts the international community’s excellent record of steady year-on-year increases, and MAY be the start of a downward trend. That would be very unfortunate, especially as the first Article 5 deadlines in 2009 approach.
The pool of major donors has changed little over the years, and is only a very small proportion of the 151 States Parties. In 2005, all but $10 million of the total $376m was provided by the top 20 donors, which of course includes two non-States Parties. $208m of the $376m was provided by the top 4 donors.
In 2005, half of the top 20 donors provided more funding than in the previous year – and the other half of the top 20 donors provided less.
The LM reporting of mine action funding should not be interpreted as implying a view that meeting A5 deadlines is simply a matter of more & more international funding. Better use of existing resources by mine affected countries and by mine action agencies is also important – and there are some signs that this is occurring, as we have reported in the LM.. In 2005 more land was demined than in any year since the 1980s. The Cambodia country-report in LM is a good example of both more clearance being achieved, and of agencies on the ground thinking seriously about better resource-allocation to achieve much greater area-reduction than before.
HOW funding is provided is also important. Funding needs to be provided in a timely manner, without delays and interruptions, and multi-year where appropriate. Pledges alone don’t clear mines and save lives.
A number of countries reported that in 2005 their mine action programs experienced significant decreases or delays in international funding of mine action. These countries were Iraq, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, BiH, Mozambique, Jordan, Tajikistan, Colombia - 5 of these countries are SPs with Article 5 deadlines in 2009 & 2010.
The only large increase in mine action funding in 2005 was experienced by Sudan.
As stated in the Landmine Monitor Report, the global total of international mine action funding excludes R&D, which we report separately - $30 million was allocated to R&D by 9 countries in 2005.
National funding - mine-affected countries’ funding of their own mine action - is also included in LM country-reports where this information is available. Good data was available only on 8 mine-affected countries, which together contributed an estimated $50 million to mine action in 2005.
Madame President, to conclude: Mine action funding is currently directed primarily to demining, and is of relevance to the current discussions of Article 5. The 10-year mine clearance deadline in Article 5 and the Article 6 obligation to provide assistance and cooperation were created by SPs themselves, at the time of negotiating the treaty. They become legal obligations on all States Parties upon ratification or accession. Having collectively willed the end, in Article 5, States Parties must rise to the occasion and provide the means to achieve that end.
Thank you, Madame President.