2.1 Inception mission
The Inception Mission was conducted in April and May 2000. Team members spent two of those weeks in Phnom Penh. Three team members also attended training in L1 survey techniques supplied by the Survey Action Centre, in Washington DC. This is a course provided to all new surveys. The Inception Mission team consisted of:
| Michael Simmons |
Project Director |
| Gregory Wickware |
Technical Advisor |
| John Brown |
Project Manager |
| Valerie Warmington |
Stakeholder Relations Advisor |
| Dr Sau Sisovanna |
Project Support Office |
Its primary output was the Project Management Plan, which was submitted to CIDA and approved by the end of May 2000. Contents of this plan include:
- Methodology, Questionnaire Development and Standard Operating Procedures
- Logical Framework Analysis and Work Breakdown Structure
- Training, Logistics, and Gender Equality
- Stakeholder Relations
- Project Management, Reporting and Performance Assessment
A number of key issues were raised during the mission, most of which were resolved before completion of the mission. A short explanation of the most significant issues is presented:
- An MOU had been negotiated between CIDA and CMAC that governed the relationship between the CEA and CMAC. Of most significance was the preferential selection of project surveyors from existing employees of CMAC and the management of these personnel by the CEA. Elsewhere in this report we describe our very careful selection procedure, the criteria used for selection and the training program for the selected surveyors. Our relationship with CMAC during the Inception Mission was materially assisted by the extremely helpful and cooperative attitude of Mr. Oun San Onn, Director of Planning at CMAC.
- The enabling MOU between Canada and Cambodia that permitted the project to take place had been drafted but had not been signed. In some ways this was fortunate as we were able to make some changes to it during the Inception Mission. The Canadian Ambassador, HE Normand Maihot, was instrumental in completing the signing of this document by the Cambodian Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation while the mission was still in Cambodia
- Requirements for certification of Level One Surveys are set by the United Nations Mine Action Service and implemented through the Survey Working Group. During the survey, Mr Stephan Vigie from UNMAS in New York provided us with direction on interpretation of the guidelines, which at that time were undergoing a thorough revision. There were a number of requirements in these certification guidelines that presented difficulties for the CEA and not all of these issues were resolved during the Inception Mission. A description of the most significant of these outstanding issues and the impact on the survey is found later in this report.
- Certification is achieved through reports to the Survey Working Group by an independent Quality Assurance Monitor (QAM) appointed by UNMAS, but in this case paid for by CIDA from a budget separate from that used to fund the CEA. There was considerable delay in appointing the QAM and in our opinion the CEA would have benefited from advice from the QAM early in the definition of the survey methodology and especially during the Inception Mission.
- Our plan was to manage the survey data using the Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA) database management software, developed for the GICHD for use in creating the Global Land Mine Database. Use of IMSMA is also a condition for UN certification. A copy of IMSMA had been supplied to CMAC just prior to the Inception Mission and two users from CMAC (Mr. In Channa and Dr. Reto Gass) had been trained in Switzerland on the use of IMSMA. They were not using the software and CMAC had no plans to switch from their existing database management system to IMSMA. There were good reasons presented to support this decision. IMSMA, at the time, did not allow users to define more than five different fields for data other than those pre-set in the software. Also it was incompatible with computer systems in use at CMAC at the time. This situation presented a significant issue for the Inception Mission. It was eventually resolved with a compromise based on the continued use of the existing CMAC database management systems (FoxPro) and creation of an export routine to IMSMA to allow the completed survey database to be entered automatically in IMSMA when the survey is completed.
- A considerable database related to mine action had been established at CMAC over the last several years prior to the Inception Mission. One of the reasons for funding the survey was suspicion that some of this data may have been suspect. In the two years prior to the decision to fund the survey there had been some turmoil at CMAC and a change in leadership. This had lead to concerns that the quality of the data could not be assured. There is no doubt that much of the database is useful but to be certain that all survey data was adequately quality assured the decision was made not to transfer any data to the survey database from previous data held at CMAC.
- A prototype level one survey had been managed by CMAC with assistance from the European Union in the year prior to the Inception Mission. The Inception Mission team was able to benefit in many significant ways from the experiences of the team leader (Mr Mao Vanna) and his Technical Advisors. The survey had been completed in three southern Provinces and was in progress in two northern Provinces when CIDA funding for a national survey was agreed. The questionnaire design, procedures for administering the questionnaire, preparation of suspected area sketch maps and estimates of the time required to survey villages in different areas of the country were all discussed with the team leader. Much of our planning for the survey was based on this information. It was also decided not to incorporate any of this information into the survey to ensure consistency of approach and results for all parts of the country.
- Considerable emphasis was placed on devising a multi level quality control and quality assurance approach. This had been largely omitted from the prototype work previously undertaken by CMAC and was not emphasised in the training delivered to us by the SAC in Washington. The decision to employ a full time QA Manager was confirmed. The procedure developed included a field level QA/QC set of procedures, reinforced by database generated consistency checks and random checks of the independent QA Manager. All procedures were consistent with, and often exceeded the UN certification guidelines.
- The most difficult issues of all were raised by the decision to utilise a statistical sampling approach rather than a comprehensive census approach to the survey. Sampling is supported by the UN certification guidelines under carefully specified conditions. A standardised set of operational procedures had been established and we had carefully explored them in Washington with advisors on statistics used by UNMAS and the SAC. The approach is based on False Negative Sampling (FNS) in a geographical setting. Based on the best information available at the time of the Inception Mission we estimated that by using FNS we could reduce the number of villages to be surveyed by about 50%. There were thought to be 13,400 villages at the time of the Inception Mission and the saving of almost 7,000 village surveys clearly had very significant budget implications. On the basis of these estimates we presented optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for the time and funding required for completion of the National Level One Survey.
- Results of the survey were intended to be useful not only to CMAC but also to the large number of organisations involved in the many aspects of humanitarian demining in Cambodia. During the Inception mission we visited as many of these organisations as we could. Most wanted to add questions of their own to the survey questionnaire, but we quickly realised that we could only accept those questions directly related to the socio-economic aspects of mine action. If we had not adopted this policy we risked potentially adding considerable time and expense to the survey. Input of these organisations did result in some significant refinements to the questionnaire, which we considered to be beneficial to the overall result of the survey.
- One of the unintended implications of the MOU with CMAC concerning the preferential use of their staff as surveyors was to dramatically bias the selection of surveyors in favour of men. This was particularly frustrating to our gender advisor, Valerie Warmington, but this bias was inescapable given the commitments that had been made, ironically enough by CIDA.
- Safety is an ever-present issue in all aspects of humanitarian demining. We were fortunate to recruit many of the surveyors from CMAC deminers and they of course had both experience and training in conducting themselves in potentially dangerous situations. Nevertheless a first priority was to develop a set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to govern the conduct of all staff in field survey operations. This work was started in the Inception Mission.
- A number of staff positions remained to be filled at the time of the Inception Mission and we were fortunate to be able to recruit very well qualified individuals to the project team during the Inception Mission. These people included; Dr Reto Gass to head the database unit and Mao Vanna to act as special assistant to the Field Survey Manager. A work related injury to the proposed Field Survey Manager required him to be replaced and we were fortunate to be able to contract Anton Schori to this position.
- The survey mandate included identification of known UXO and the associated socio-economic impacts. During the Inception Mission it became clear that much of the known UXO in the country had been moved from its original locations and that UXO related accidents frequently occurred at these storage locations. This raised the issue of whether or not UXO impacts should be treated in the same manner as land mine impacts. The issue was much debated and was resolved in a manner acceptable to the mine action community as described in Annex 1 of SOP 11.
