16 2008
UN-INSTRAW participated in the Workshop organized by the Swiss Campaign to Ban Landmines that was held on 15 January 2008 in Geneva, Switzerland. The objective of the workshop was to obtain inputs from the participants for the preparation of a training kit on gender and mine action.
This training kit will assist organizations worldwide in developing projects and programmes on the issue of gender and mine action. Representatives from international organizations that focus their work on the elimination of landmines as well as from governmental and United Nations organizations participated at the event.
UN-INSTRAW’s presentation at the workshop focused on how to collect data disaggregated by age and sex, how to involve local stakeholder and women's organizations, and how to measure the success of Mine Action Programmes from a gender perspective.
“In order to distinguish success from failure, different needs, perspectives and realities of all members of society must be made visible and performance measured. The inclusion of a gender perspective into mine action programmes aims to make such programmes more comprehensive and responsive to the different needs of men, women, boys and girls affected by land mines.” Nicola Popovic, the associate expert of the Gender, Peace and Security Programme at UN-INSTRAW stated.
“In order to measure whether security programmes -including mine action programmes- are successful for all members of society, gender-sensitive indicators, gender-balanced research teams, and base line data disaggregated by sex and age should be included in every step of programme development" she continued.
As many as 78 nations are affected by landmines while 85 are affected by explosive remnants of war. Today, there are nearly 500,000 landmine survivors, of whom three quarters are civilians. Incorporating gender perspective in all relevant mine action initiatives and operation will help to strengthen mine action programmes and make them more efficient and sensitive.
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