Albania

To Contribute to the release of High and Medium priority minefields and battle areas in Northeast Albania according to the National Master Clearance Plan and to the establishment of a national demining capacity.

General Background

The extent of the mine and UXO contamination includes an area of approximately 120km along the Kosovo-Albanian border, from Montenegro in the north to Macedonia in the south, laid by the former Republic of Yugoslavia forces during the Kosovo crisis and UXO remnants of Yugoslav artillery clusters strikes up to 20 km inside Albania as well as remnants of ordnance released by NATO aircrafts.

The mines and UXO contamination indirectly affects all of the population of the Kukes prefecture, which includes almost 120,000 while more than 25,000 are directly affected in 39 villages. Since 1999, there have been 208 mine/uxo accidents in which 238 persons were injured and 34 killed.

A national Mine Action Strategy has been formulated in June 2002 and revised in mid 2004. The specific Goals of the National Strategy for mine/UXO clearance are:

1. Albania free from the effect of mines by the end of 2006 where all HIGH and MEDIUM impact areas are cleared and a National Capacity is established to deal with the remained problem.

2. Albania free from mines and UXOs by the end of 2009 where all LOW impact areas are cleared.

From 2000 to 2004, various demining organizations as RONCO, HELP, Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) and Danish Church Aid (DCA-Act) have been present in Albania conducting mine and UXO clearance operations and about 11 million m2 of formerly contaminated land has been released by these organizations and handed over to the community.

TSC Project
The Technical Survey Project was funded by the European Commission in 2003 in support of the implementation of the National Strategy. The French NGO Handicap International was selected as implementing agency and started its field activities in March 2004. Unfortunately in 24th May 04 an accident occurred during a training lecture with the new recruited deminers held by the Handicap International in Kukes, where an ordnance supposed to be free from explosive exploded. This caused a suspension of the activities and a Board of Inquiry was convened to identify the causes of the accident and to provide recommendations to prevent such accidents happening again in future in all the mine action programmes worldwide.

The project restarted in the new working season in March 2005 with the remaining funds enlarging also its activities beyond the technical clearance straight to clearance operations. DCA-Act has been selected by UNDP as the implementing partner following an open tender process. DCA-Act is implementing the activities on the ground by operating with four survey and clearance teams and one Mine Detection Dogs Team. Actual field operations are conducted according to the priorities determined by the AMAE and executed by the teams best suited for the specific terrain. Capacity building is a specific objective in the work plan of the project. In particular a formal objective evaluation process will be established for all national staff with the goal of eventually handing over responsibility for the planning, management, execution and supervision of the demining organisation to the national staff.

Objective 1: Conduct technical surveys and clearance of mined and battle areas in the North East Albania Outputs
1.1. Preparation for operations in NE Albania.
1.2 Implementation and execution of Technical Survey and clearance in NE Albania.

Objective 2: Technical and managerial training of national personnel for the future establishment of the National Demining Organisation
Output 2.1: National personnel of the demining organization trained at managerial, technical, administrative and logistic support.

The primary beneficiaries of this initiative will be the communities, the border police, and individuals - the men, women and children most affected by landmines. The communities of the mine affected villages will have the opportunity to benefit from the development projects in the region which are now hampered by the presence of mine and UXO-s.

The Project is being implemented by UNDP in close partnership with AMAE, the National Authority for Mine Action which is in charge of the overall technical oversight for the implementation of the field activities. AMAE will ensure proper coordingation between the TSC Project and all the other Mine Action activities in teh country.

The TSC Project is overseen by a Steering Committee composed of delegated representatives of the Albanian Government, EU Delegation and UNDP and coordinated by a Management Committee composed of the EC Programme Manager for Integrated Border Management, UNDP CO representative, the UNDP Mine Action Chief Technical Advisor, the Director of AMAE and representatives from DCA-Act.

Arben Braha
AMAE Director
amaealbania@amae.org.al
AMAE Office Tel/Fax 00355 437 37 80