Decision Support for Mine Action - Kosovo

Shortly after deploying the first-ever landmine impact
survey team to the field in Yemen during July 1999,
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) was
asked by the European Union and the U.S. State
Department’s Office for Global Humanitarian Demining
Programs to make a critical contribution to the
international response in the province of Kosovo in the
former Republic of Yugoslavia. The mission: to classify
affected communities in Kosovo by the severity of
socio-economic impacts caused by landmines and
unexploded ordnance (UXO) and develop a system for
prioritizing the tasks that the United Nations Mine
Action Coordination Center (UNMACC) managed.
The humanitarian microcosm of Kosovo offered a
unique opportunity in the maturing mine action sector.
The major threat of landmines and UXO was overcome
within two and a half years, between mid-1999 and
late-2001, whereas mine action programs in most other
countries seem destined to continue for periods of two
decades or more. In Kosovo, VVAF demonstrated that
humanitarian mine action management can be
significantly enhanced with modern information
management and decision support tools.