20-Year Summary

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s demining program is the world’s largest and oldest. The UN Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan was established in 1989 by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). A Department of Mine Clearance with a coordination function over the Mine Action Programme of Afghanistan[1] was created in 1990 and in 1995 became the Department for Mine Action Coordination (DMAC), a department of the Afghan national Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA).[2]

In 2006–2007 the program underwent extensive operational reform and restructuring to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of the UN’s implementing partners, as well as to reflect the threat to mine clearance from growing insurgency. Since its establishment, DMAC claims to have cleared nearly 77% of known “legacy” contamination from the pre-2001 conflicts.[3] However the ongoing conflict continues to add to the contamination.

Afghanistan’s Article 5 clearance obligations have been significantly increased by improvised mines, which have also contributed to a sharp upturn in casualties in recent years. Afghanistan now identifies them as the greatest challenge for the mine action sector.[4]

Note: ERW = explosive remnants of war; CHA = confirmed hazardous areas; SHA = suspected hazardous areas; AIM = abandoned improvised mines; IHA = initial hazardous areas.

Contamination and Impact

Afghanistan is one of the countries most affected by mines and ERW as a result of almost four decades of armed conflict, including the war of resistance following the Soviet invasion of 1979, internal armed conflicts between 1992 and 2001, and the United States-led coalition intervention in 2001. Ongoing conflict between the government, the Taliban and other armed groups is continuing to add to the contamination, particularly by improvised mines, which have overtaken legacy mined areas as the biggest humanitarian threat.[15]

Afghanistan is also one of the poorest countries in the world and the Afghan government remains heavily aid dependent. The Afghan economy is largely founded on agriculture and rural trade; around 85% of the population is entirely reliant on income from agriculture and livestock. The cultivation of opium remains significant. Afghanistan has some natural resources, and international investment in mineral extraction has begun. Economic development is heavily dependent on access to land that is safe from insecurity and from ERW including landmines and unexploded ordinance (UXO).[16]

Mine Ban Treaty Article 5 Compliance

Afghanistan became a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty on 1 March 2003. However, continued insecurity, fluctuating funding, and the density of mine/ERW contamination led to Afghanistan requesting a 10-year Article 5 deadline extension until 2023.[17] The request was prepared collaboratively, involving governmental, non-governmental, and UN agencies, and submitted in 2012. The request provided yearly clearance targets and a budget of US$618.6 million.[18] However, the extension request targets have not been met due to a drop in donor funding, which fell by more than half between 2011 and 2014, and by new, extensive contamination by improvised mines, expanding the extent of Afghanistan’s Article 5 obligations. DMAC reports that since 2013, some improvements in procedures and processes of land release have resulted in a considerable decrease in cost per square kilometer for almost all types of contamination.[19]

Mine Action Program

Management

UNMAS took over from OCHA in 2001, and since 2012 the MAPA has transitioned to national ownership, which was completed in 2018. UNMAS now provides technical support and funding.[20]

Strategic planning

Afghanistan’s five-year plan for 2016–2020 was adopted in January 2016 but did not amend the extension request clearance targets.[21] It sets out four strategic goals: facilitating development; integrating mine action into other sectors including health, education, and economy; reducing the impact of mines and ERW and mitigating the impact of mine incidents; and mainstreaming gender and diversity. The plan acknowledged that continued use of improvised mines could prevent Afghanistan from meeting its Article 5 clearance deadline.[22]

Legislation and standards

In September 2018 the regulation on the prohibition of production, importation, transportation, export, preservation, use, and destruction of antipersonnel mines and cluster munitions was published as annex 1 of the 2005 Law on Firearms, Ammunitions and Explosive Materials.[23]

An “Abandoned Improvised Mine (AIM) technical working group” was set up in November 2017 to draft terminology and a policy for tackling improvised mines.[24] In March 2019 Afghanistan became the first country to adopt a national standard for the clearance of improvised mines.[25]

Information management

IMSMA was introduced in Afghanistan in 2004 and the entire dataset was migrated from the original database system.[26] The IMSMA database at DMC is currently operating an IMSMA NG Version 6 database but has started preparations for an upgrade to IMSMA Core.

National and global goals

Afghanistan’s 2016–2020 plan included incorporating mine action into Afghanistan’s National Priority Programs and Sustainable Development Goals. The plan also aims to support the mainstreaming of mine action across other sectors including education, health, agriculture and rural rehabilitation, social protection, governance, infrastructure, security, and the private sector.[27]

Gender and diversity

The 2016–2020 plan also sets out the commitments to mainstreaming gender across the mine action program as one of the four goals of the plan. This included developing a gender and diversity policy; increasing the employment of women, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups; and to budget for gender-based activities.[28] The first all-women mine clearance team was established in 2018.[29]

Land Release

Survey

Afghanistan has conducted several surveys during the course of its mine action program in the attempt to better quantify the scale of contamination. A National Survey project was conducted in 1993,[30] followed by a general survey process from 1994–2002 to keep survey data updated. The Afghanistan Landmine Impact Survey (LIS) was conducted from 2003–2004 and identified 2,571 affected communities and a total contaminated area of 716km², of which 445.6km² (62.3% of the total) contained antipersonnel mines, antivehicle mines, or a mixture of the two.[31] However, the LIS and all following re-survey efforts have not been able to cover the full extent of country contamination due to ongoing conflict, insecurity and a lack of access to certain areas.[32]

Planning and priority setting

Afghanistan employs a hazard ranking system to help prioritize clearance, called the Ottawa Ranking System. It assigns a rank of one to six for each hazard, with one designating the highest priority. This includes recent victims, blocking of vital infrastructure (agricultural land or a residential area).

Improvised mines

Afghanistan has to reassess its Article 5 obligations to take account of extensive contamination by improvised mines. DMAC reports that improvised mines are now being surveyed as SHA or CHA and when entered into IMSMA they are included as part of the Article 5 workplan.[33] The extent of this new contamination has yet to be determined by survey, but preliminary estimates in 17 of 22 affected provinces identified 152 hazards covering 228km². Moreover, mitigating the threat is obstructed by insecurity which renders some areas inaccessible to deminers, and even where there is access, clearance teams will be limited to tackling only the hazardous areas where they have the consent of all relevant parties.

Deminer safety

Security and ongoing conflict in Afghanistan have affected clearance operations, slowing down and sometimes halting the progress of mine clearance.[34] In 2018, six deminers were killed and 18 injured as a result of security incidents.[35]