NPA, Quang Tri Government commit $2.9 million to reduce UXO accidents

Vice Chairman Nguyen Duc Chinh and NPA Country Director Jonathon Guthrie at the signing ceremony.

Dong Ha, Quang Tri (28 November 2011): Dong Ha, Quang Tri Province – The people of Quang Tri Province will face fewer risks of accidents, injuries and death from wartime bomb and mine explosions over the next three years, with implementation of a $2.9 million agreement signed today between Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) and the government of Quang Tri Province. The agreement, signed by Quang Tri Province People's Committee (PPC) Standing Vice Chairman Nguyen Duc Chinh, and the Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) Country Director Jonathon Guthrie, will extend the humanitarian demining program of Project RENEW for three more years from January 2012 until 2014, and expand RENEW's services into another district of the province.

The effort will deploy trained teams of Vietnamese EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) technicians, certified with Intertnational Mine Action Standard (IMAS), to safely remove or destroy explosive remnants of war (ERW) and clean up heavily contaminated areas in Quang Tri Province. In addition, NPA and the Quang Tri PPC, through Project RENEW, will assist district and commune governments with their strategic development goals, with a focus on effective planning and coordination of mine action resources and improved capacity of local staff to deal with the ERW problem on a long-term, sustainable basis.

The program will continue to serve Trieu Phong, Cam Lo and Hai Lang Districts as in the past. Concurrently, with the new funding, the effort will expand into mountainous Dakrong District which has had a high rate of ERW accidents but few resources to deal with the problem.

Launched in 2001, Project RENEW is a cooperative effort between Quang Tri PPC, international donors, and foreign NGOs. The project has been a model designed to improve coordination and management of the province's response to the humanitarian challenges of ERW threats. Major pillars of Project RENEW's mine action work include ERW clearance, risk education, victim assistance and support to mine action coordination.

NPA was established in 1939 and is one of the largest International NGOs in the field of humanitarian mine action. NPA works in over 30 countries and manages approximately 300 projects worldwide. In 2007, NPA began operations in Vietnam by providing financial and technical assistance to Project RENEW as one of the project's co-sponsors. With the signing of this agreement, NPA becomes the primary sponsor of Project RENEW in January 2012.

In recent years Project RENEW teams have safely removed 15,350 items of cluster bombs, mines and other ordnance, and released over 570,000 square meters of safe land for the local people to build schools, kindergartens, community centers and other public projects. Project RENEW teams are the first in Vietnam to achieve IMAS Level 2 certification.

Quang Tri still suffers the highest contamination of bombs and mines of any place in Vietnam. Contamination is found on more than 80 percent of the province's land area (average contamination nationwide is 20 percent). Since 1975, the province has recorded 7,075 casualties due to ERW accidents, about 1.2 percent of its total population, including 2,635 deaths. Notably, 31% of the victims have been children.

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