The heads of Norwegian People's Aid - Humanitarian Disarmament, The HALO Trust, MAG (Mines Advisory Group), and Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining - GICHD - together at the UN in New York, in the margins of yesterday’s Ministerial level meeting on the Global Demining Initiative for Colombia. As stated in the joint HALO, MAG, and NPA foreword to the recently published “Clearing Cluster Munition Remnants 2016 report” (http://bit.ly/2c2p2Jl): “As a sector, we are collectively stronger than ever, and the lessons we learnt in implementing the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (APMBC) have been put to good effect in seeking to make the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) a similar success. Mine action NGOs inevitably compete for funds, but today we are also working together as partners in an essential humanitarian and development endeavour, driven by a shared responsibility to learn from our experiences and our mistakes, and underpinned by our desire for ever-greater operational efficiencies.”

Latin American Herald Tribune - International Community Backs Colombia in Effort to Remove Landmines within 5 Years

Good news from US Government in Laos

Norwegian People's Aid shared Norwegian People's Aid - Humanitarian Disarmament's post.

Women still have limited chances to take on political representative roles in Myanmar. Women Can Do it (WCDI) is trying to change this by conducting capacity-building training for young women who are preparing to enter the world of politics. NPA is a proud partner of WCDI. Read more here:

Norwegian People's Aid Myanmar

The Cluster Munition Monitor 2016, released yesterday, shows continued progress in support for the ban on cluster munitions, which 119 countries have now joined. However, in the small number of countries where these horrific weapons are still being used, most notably Syria and Yemen, civilians are being killed and maimed. “All countries concerned by the near-daily reports of cluster munition attacks in Syria should call for an immediate end to the use and encourage the users to embrace the international ban on these weapons”, said Mary Wareham, of Human Rights Watch. Cluster munitions have been banned because of their widespread indiscriminate effect both at the time of use, and long after due to the danger posed by unexploded submunitions that remain on the ground.

Norwegian People's Aid - Humanitarian Disarmament