DanChurchAid

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Humanitarian Mine Action

DanChurchAid's involvement in mine action

15/03/2008: Background information and summary of DanChurchAid's past involvement and activities in mine action.

DanChurchAid and mine action

DanChurchAid became involved in mine action in the mid-1980s through its support to LWF’s Demining and Resettlement Project in Cambodia.

Miners in action with mine detectors, Eritrea 2001
© Heine Pedersen

When the discussions on humanitarian consequences of landmines started – and in the lead up to the Landmine Treaty Ban at the Ottawa Conference in 1997 – DCA was one of the leading agencies in the dissemination of information through campaigns and advocacy within the church network and in Denmark.

As a direct result of these efforts, and in order to combine advocacy with direct implementation, DCA chose to become operational in Kosovo in late 1999. Today, DCA is successfully implementing programmes in Albania , Angola , Burundi , DR Congo and Sudan .

Church network

Today, DanChurchAid offers its Humanitarian Mine Action expertise through the church network, most often through the Lutheran World Federation - Department of World Service ( LWF-WS ) and the Action by Churches Together ( ACT ).

DanChurchAid has a specific role to play through its strong partnership with the church network where DCA given this expertise of humanitarian mine action can better work towards alleviating the suffering of people. DCA is guided by the Christian concept of Diakonia (which means Christian service) and the closely linked humanitarian imperative to assist people in need. DCA supports programs that assist people regardless of religion, geographical area, gender, political belief, and ethnicity.

Landmine warning sign, Angola 2003
© Mike Kollöffel

Mine action - an emergency action

Mine action is not necessarily defined as a post conflict activity. It is in fact an emergency action with a view to the long term.

For this reason it is appropriate that the Humanitarian Mine Action focal point for DCA be located in the emergency operative unit.

In times of an ongoing conflict, it may still be under the humanitarian mandate to intervene, where, for example, humanitarian corridors have to be created to access starving persons caught behind frontlines.

For more information please read DCA's full-lenght policy on HMA .