1.1 The Global Mine Impact Survey Approach

Growing out of the wide collaborative efforts of the International Treaty to Ban Landmines, Landmine Impact Surveys are executed to meet the needs of all members of the international humanitarian mine action community including donors, national authorities and mine action implementers.

The overall vision for Landmine Impact Surveys is to facilitate the prioritization of human, material and financial resources supporting humanitarian mine action at the national, regional and global levels. Landmine Impact Surveys provide the three major partners of mine action – national authorities, donors and implementing agencies – with a common dataset.

In Cambodia, it is not uncommon to find people living in or beside suspected or known mined areas.

Landmine Impact Surveys are intended to:

• Define the problem in terms of scale, type, location, hazard and social and economic impact experienced by local communities
• Improve national planning by allowing for clear prioritization of resources
• Foster development of national plans with well-defined immediate, intermediate and end-state objectives
• Establish baseline data for measuring performance

Injuries suffered by livestock can incur significant negative economic consequences for local populations.

As a result, national authorities have the information needed to focus planning on areas of greatest impact; donors are in a better position to apportion funds to places of greatest human need and implementers have baseline data from which to measure progress.

The Survey Action Center has produced a set of survey planning and implementation protocols that provide guidance to implementing agencies.