Mine Risk Education for Mine-Affected Communities: Guidelines for Risk Assessment and Planning in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Linking Mine Action and Deve

Ten years after the conflict ended, mines still kill and threaten entire the entire population, particularly the 1,000,000 people living in communities directly impacted by mines. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, UNICEF has worked with government agencies to develop a policy framework to regulate and build the capacity of the mine action centre. Its focal point is the Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Centre (BHMAC), which is the government agency responsible for coordinating the country’s mine action.

UNICEF has especially focused on the improved of Mine Risk Education planning. It therefore commissioned these guidelines to emphasise a more suitable approach through increased involvement of communities in programme planning in the course of their participation in designing, making decisions about, and implementing mine action activities in their communities.

The guidelines are written in the following format:

Chapter 1: “Data Collection and Processing” deals with data collection techniques and preliminary risk assessment.

Chapter 2: “Risk Assessment in Mine Affected Community” deals with techniques for the identification of risk and mine affected population groups, risk assessment and designing of a risk register.

Chapter 3: “Assessment of Needs and Capacities in Mine Affected Community” deals with characteristics of affected groups identified though the risk assessment process as well as with the characteristics of the affected community.

Chapter 4: “Preparation of Mine Risk Education Plan for the Affected Community and Municipality” combines the results of previous activities.

Appendix 1: all annexes to the main body

Appendix 2: presents results on the interview and survey procedure control tests.