10.2 Survey Managers' Report

As required by the UNMAS certification protocols, this section of the report is written solely by the Field Manager, Valerie Warmington, and reflects her personal opinions and observations about the project from the perspective of its day-to-day management.

As with most projects there were times when work went smoothly with few issues or problems to think about or deal with and other times when the work was incredibly challenging and difficult. Always however, work on the Cambodia National Level One Field Survey was motivating and satisfying. This high level of satisfaction, was in part, due to a highly skilled and motivated Level One Survey team whom I consider it an honor to have worked with. It is also due to the consistently positive feedback received from the end user community throughout the project and to the ongoing high level of demand for and use of the survey data. I have no doubts that this survey has and will continue to serve both the international and Cambodian mine action communities well.

1. Management Issues

The first Field Manager was replaced within a month of the start of operations. The new Field Manager was well known to the surveyors as a long-time technical advisor in Cambodia who had gained their respect while working on the Level One Survey Project as Quality Assurance and Quality Control Manager prior to taking over as Project Manager. As a result, the transition to a new Project Manager was achieved with little disruption to the project. The relatively military-like structure and discipline that was introduced to the project as a result of this change was well-suited to project timeline, budgetary and personnel considerations.

Original expatriate contracts were for one year but early survey results led to the project being restructured as a two-year initiative. This extension in timeline led to additional senior personnel changes after the initial year of work as both the Field Manager and the Project Manager declined to renew their contracts in favor of higher paying positions elsewhere. Fortunately, the resulting changes in personnel went smoothly and in some ways proved beneficial to the project. For example, the change in Project Manager coincided with a shift in project focus from field operations, which at this point were very well-established and running smoothly, to information dissemination which was coming to the fore as a challenging practical and political issue. The change in Project Manager responded to this evolution in the project. Secondly, the addition of a geologist to the team as Field Manager stimulated an improved understanding and use of maps and GPS generally within the project.

The new Project Manager (the writer) had previously worked for other mine action agencies in Cambodia and had been part of the Level One Survey Project since its inception and was therefore already well known to survey staff and to the mine action community. This previous involvement reduced the occurrence and/or impact of difficulties that might otherwise have arisen.

The replacement Field Manager was new to the project and to Cambodia, but this did not pose any problems as he was well-supported by a highly-skilled and experienced local counterpart.

One factor that contributed significantly to the smooth implementation of this project was the strong relationship between the surveyors and the Assistant Field Manager who operated as the local counterpart to the Field Manager. Prior to joining the survey project, the Assistant Field Manager had worked many years at CMAC and had risen through the ranks to become the Director of Operations. His familiarity with the surveyors - all of whom had at one time or another worked with or under him - and with the management structures and practices of CMAC proved invaluable in the planning and implementation of the Cambodia Level One Survey.

Interestingly, there were remarkably few changes in the roster of surveyors over the two years of the project. One surveyor died of liver failure shortly after completion of the initial training course; two surveyors were replaced early in the project as a disciplinary matter; and one surveyor ceased to work due to being seriously injured in a motorcycle accident while on duty. All other surveyors remained with the project from beginning to end.

2. Staff Commitment

Despite difficult, challenging and at times dangerous working conditions, Level One surveyors demonstrated tremendous loyalty and commitment to their work throughout the project. The results of a debriefing session with surveyors on the completion of field operations indicated that surveyors clearly understood and appreciated the importance of the work they were doing and that the support they received from headquarters was commensurate with their needs. See the next section - 10.3 Team Leaders' Report

Throughout the course of the project significant effort was made to ensure that all surveyors' needs were identified and to the extent possible met in as timely a manner as possible. This was at times more complicated than anticipated for a variety of reasons that were neither straightforward nor easy to discern. For example, we discovered some time after the project was operational that if a surveyor was ill, rather than report the illness and get proper medical treatment, the surveyor might remain in 'hiding' in the accommodations while his immediate supervisors and colleagues would cover for him by reporting him as 'on duty'. After much 'spot-checking' of accommodations by expatriate staff and questioning of survey staff it was discovered that the surveyors were attempting to conceal illness for fear of being fired because of it. Similarly, although all of their medical expenses were covered either by insurance or directly from the project budget, surveyors rarely would opt to see a doctor but would visit much less expensive 'traditional' healers' that they paid for themselves. Often the result was that the surveyor's condition either worsened or that the illness was unnecessarily prolonged. It was eventually discovered that the surveyors simply did not clearly understand the concept of insurance and did not believe that they would not have to pay for the medical attention received. Although such problems had the potential to significantly impact on the progress of the work, once identified they were easily remedied. However, these examples do serve to illustrate the amount and level of attention that was required to ensure that survey staff were adequately supported.

The relationship between headquarters in Canada and the project office in Cambodia was similarly supportive. Advice and assistance was readily available when requested but at other times the decisions and recommendations of the staff in the field were accepted and implemented.

3. Personnel Issues

All of the surveyors employed by GeoSpatial during the Level One Survey were seconded from CMAC as a means of providing additional support to that organization and to add to their capacity to maintain the survey and to conduct future surveys. Although there were a number of concerns about this arrangement, it ultimately proved very beneficial to the project. Firstly, most of the surveyors were experienced deminers who were trained in the use of maps, GPS and other equipment; knowledgeable about mines and their effects on communities; familiar with safety protocols and guidelines; and used to the unavoidably harsh living and working conditions in remote areas of the country. Although retraining and additional training was provided in all cases, their previous experience with mines served the L1S project well and use was made of this knowledge to solve a variety of technical and protocol issues that arose during the course of the project.

One of the greatest concerns associated with the exclusive selection of surveyors from existing CMAC staff was the lack of female candidates (there are no female deminers within CMAC to choose from). This problem was addressed to the extent possible through a rigorous recruitment and training process that recognized and responded to the need for women's voices to be heard at all stages of the survey process. Firstly, having a woman on the selection committee during the recruitment process allowed for an assessment of each potential surveyor's ability and willingness to communicate comfortably with women. Those candidates who were unable/unwilling to interact directly with a female in the context of the employment interview were marked lower than those who interacted easily with a woman in this context. Secondly, once in training the importance of having a mix of both male and female respondents was stressed and the potential differences in male and female perspectives on socio-economic impacts discussed at length. This appears to have been an effective approach to remedying this problem as no difficulties in gaining access to women respondents were reported, and spot checks of questionnaires provided assurance that women were well represented as respondents throughout the entire survey process.

Recruitment posed other problems as the issues of job-buying and other corrupt hiring practices came to the fore. In order to defend against allegations of unfair selection practices, the recruitment process was as transparent and objective as possible. When our selection list was challenged it was easily defended as our clear selection criteria, ranking procedures and documentation of the process left little room for such accusations to be taken seriously.

4. Technical Issues

Although it was highly beneficial to have trained deminers working as Level One surveyors, the Level One Survey did have a different focus on the problem of mines than many of the surveyors had experienced while working as deminers. Consequently, at times it was a challenge to get surveyors to understand the problem from a socio-economic rather than technical perspective. One of the most useful methods of ensuring clarity amongst surveyors when faced with a conceptual obstacle was to arrange a demonstration of the database to help them understand why certain questions were being asked and how the answers they were collecting would be presented to and used by end-users. Illustrating how the information they were collecting might assist end-users helped surveyors to more clearly interpret questions for which the meaning and purpose was uncertain. This strategy also helped to further refine the survey instrument and ensured that potential ambiguities within the dataset were minimized.

Several significant changes were made to the survey questionnaire during implementation. The need to make such changes raised questions as to whether the situation could have been avoided by spending more time pre-testing the instrument in advance of actual survey operations. In my view, the problems that led to the most significant mid-survey questionnaire changes would not have been easily identified with a longer pre-test because they were specific to particular locations. Although mid-survey changes to the questionnaire meant that some areas had to be revisited at the end of the project in order to achieve consistency in the information collected, the time required to do so was less than would have been required to identify these problems during pre-testing.

Some problems would not have been identified at all but for the extremely rigorous quality assurance and control systems and procedures implemented by both the Quality Assurance and Control Manager and the Database Manager. The extremely high level of attention to consistency and detail demonstrated by both these individuals resulted in the identification of a number of data anomalies that otherwise might have gone unnoticed and un-addressed. The extra time, effort and money devoted to QA/QC above that required for certification by UNMAS significantly increased project management and end user confidence in the reliability of the survey results and was therefore well worth it.

5. Data Dissemination Issues

One of the most important and difficult issues to address with respect to the Cambodia L1S related to the dissemination of data. Significant amounts of time and effort were invested in resolving the various difficulties that arose in this regard. From our point of view the most important considerations are:

1. It is essential to distribute data in order to elicit feedback from the end-user community. This is the easiest and most reliable way of ensuring that the database is capable of responding to the needs of the community and that there are no ambiguities, inconsistencies, systematic errors or other problems with the data.



2. Ethical issues arise when individuals or organizations request data but are forced to wait long periods of time before receiving data that could enhance their own or others' safety.

Situations in which survey-implementing agencies may not be able to share the information they have, or to share it in the most appropriate formats, may arise for a number of reasons:

1. There are costs associated with data dissemination that may not be covered in the project budget;



2. There may be any number of political or administrative reasons for not authorizing full dissemination;



3. There may be confusion or ambiguity as to who has final authority for the data; and



4. Only when the survey is completed for the entire country is it certified, but as some Provinces are completed many months in advance of certification there may be a lack of clarity as to the implications/responsibilities associated with distributing non-certified data for these Provinces.

Each of these problems arose at one time or another during the Cambodia Level One Survey. Fortunately, each of these obstacles was eventually overcome. Much anxiety, effort and time could have been saved by having some arrangement/agreement on data distribution written into the MOU, or otherwise agreed in advance.

The Cambodia Level One Survey experience suggests that the data produced will be demanded and used by a potentially large and diverse number of organizations extending well beyond the international and national mine action communities. Responding to highly specific and diverse requests for Level One data is an extremely time and resource intensive activity. In the case of the Cambodia Level One Survey, the creation of a Cambodia-specific database query system enabled the entire dataset to be provided on a CD to end-users who, with minimum instruction, could work with and analyse the data in ways consistent with their particular and at times changing needs. We did not find the IMSMA system, in the version available to us, could be easily adapted for this purpose.

Finally, having the SAC protocols and the UN Certification Guidelines to refer to during planning and implementation of the survey was very beneficial. There was a period at the beginning of the project where it seemed that a rigid interpretation and application of these protocols would interfere with the ability to implement a survey that primarily met the specific needs of Cambodia. Ongoing negotiation and discussion ultimately resulted in a level of flexibility that responded to the particular circumstances presented in the Cambodian context yet at the same time ensured that the accumulated knowledge and experience of other survey-implementing agencies was considered and made good use of. In this regard, it is recommended that the UN-appointed quality assurance monitor spend more time with survey staff at the beginning of the survey project, when the need for advice in relation to the SAC protocols is most pressing, rather than later in the project when decisions have already been made and are being implemented.