READ THE 2023 REPORT | WATCH THE VIDEOS
UNMAS in 2023: Mine Action Cannot Wait
In its twenty-seventh year, UNMAS adapted successfully to evolving operational, security and political contexts and removed and destroyed tens of thousands of explosive ordnance items, improved the safety of millions of people, strengthened the national capacity of partner governments, and reduced the threat of explosive ordnance to United Nations and humanitarian personnel.
The UNMAS Strategic Plan aims to maximize UNMAS contributions to the successful implementation of United Nations peace operations mandates and the delivery of humanitarian assistance consistent with the new United Nations Mine Action Strategy and the United Nations vision is free from the threat of mines, explosive remnants of war (ERW), including cluster munitions, and IEDs.
Foreword from the Secretary-General
Every year, landmines, improvised explosive devices and other explosive ordnance and remnants of war claim thousands of victims.
As this report makes clear, 2023 found the brave women and men of UNMAS continuing to provide their highly specialized services to remove these deadly weapons, ensure that people can travel safely in their communities, and provide education and threat assessments to keep people and humanitarian workers safe.
Country by country, community by community, the dedicated personnel of UNMAS are ridding the world of deadly vestiges of war.
I call on the global community to continue supporting this essential work.
António Guterres,
Secretary-General of the United Nations
Message from the UNMAS Director
UNMAS now delivers 20 programmes, many in places experiencing increased use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by non-state armed groups and terrorists, increased use of explosive weapons in populated areas, decreased respect for international humanitarian law, and the impact of climate change on food security and displacement.
In each of our programmes we seek to enable the broader humanitarian, stabilization and development agendas requested by the host country or mandated by the Security Council and coordinated across United Nations partners.
Ilene Cohn,
Director, United Nations Mine Action Service
In 2023, UNMAS achieved significant accomplishments, which included the destruction of 137,299 explosive remnants of war (ERW) and 2,820 landmines. Additionally, the confirmation of safe land covered an area of 419 square kilometres, while 121 kilometres of roads were surveyed, cleared, and confirmed as safe. UNMAS also delivered in-person explosive ordnance risk education (EORE) to over 4.9 million people.
UNMAS is funded in several ways. When integrated into peacekeeping and special political missions, funding comes from assessed contributions through appropriations made by the General Assembly. Other activities depend on contributions to the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund for Assistance in Mine Action. Flexible, sustained funding is essential to UNMAS ability to manage complexity and build responsive programmes at the country level. UNMAS encourages donors to consider multi-year contributions. Unrestricted funding provides UNMAS with the agility to allocate resources to areas of great need but limited resources. UNMAS is grateful to Andorra, Denmark, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland and Slovakia for providing unearmarked contributions. UNMAS thanks the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Belgium, the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands for providing in-kind personnel and Junior Professional Officers in 2023. UNMAS Improvised Explosive Device Threat Mitigation and Advisory Team activities in 2023 were conducted with generous support from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan and USA.
