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Mine Clearance Priorities for 2009 Discussed
Maputo 20 February 2009 — The Mozambican government and donor agencies will spend 8.8 million US dollars on demining this year, under the country's Mine Action Programme.
Maputo 20 February 2009 — The Mozambican government and donor agencies will spend 8.8 million US dollars on demining this year, under the country's Mine Action Programme.
Of this sum, three million dollars will come from the Mozambican state budget, and the remaining 5.8 million will be provided by donors.
The sum was announced on Friday during the annual meeting between the government's National Demining Institute (IND) and the demining operators. This meeting drew up a balance sheet on the activities undertaken in 2008, and analysed the priorities for 2009.
Fernando Mulima, head of the IND's Studies and Planning Department, said that in 2009 the Institute hopes to clear 93 mined areas in the southern provinces of Maputo, Gaza and Inhambane, and in Sofala and Manica in the centre of the country.
These areas are in addition to 48 others, where demining began in 2008 but has yet to be completed.
Research undertaken in 2007/2008 in these five province indicated that they contain a total of 541 mined areas, covering about 12.2 million square metres.
Demining these areas, said Mulima, seeks to provide greater security in the circulation of people and goods, and to allow the land concerned to be brought back into production.
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The priorities for 2009 also include consolidating the work of the quality control teams, and the training of a further 250 civic education agents to warn people living in mined areas of the dangers they run.
Mozambique is a signatory to the Ottawa Convention on banning anti-personnel land mines. Under the Convention, Mozambique should have completed mine clearance by this year. But the task has proved too heavy for this deadline, and Mozambique asked for, and was granted, an extension to 2014.
Mine’s clearance is one of the areas supported by UNDP in Mozambique.