The government needs more than 470 billion kip (US$57 million) for unexplored ordnance clearance efforts planned for the next five years (2017-2021), a survey has revealed.

Chief of the UXO Clearance Section, National Regulatory Authorities for the UXO/Mine Action Sector in the Lao PDR (NRA) Office, Mr Phommachanh Khammanichanh presented a UXO clearance plan at a meeting in Vientiane on November 9.

“More than US$10 million is needed annually for UXO clearance for every 4,500 hectares of confirmed hazardous area (CHA). The current nationwide CHA is 29,000 ha,” he said.

There are 108 operational UXO clearance teams in the country and each team can clear 41 ha of UXOs per year.

Planned UXO clearance efforts have been approved by the government for 2016-2020 for 20 national development priority areas, 71 local development priority areas, 145 settlement areas, and 213 large communities.

The government plans to conduct non-technical surveys in more than 3,100 villages, including resurveys in 300 villages by 2019.

So far this year, a total of 3,225 ha of land were cleared. This includes 2,214 ha of agricultural land and over 1,000 ha of land set for development.

Since 2016, more than 86,000 UXO items were destroyed, non-technical surveys have been conducted in 735 villages, and technical surveys have been completed in 12,993 villages.

Source:
courtesy of KPL NEWS AGENCY

by Singkham Yengtavanh

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