Mines 2030 — A Mirage? UNMAS Waste, War Echoes & LIDAR Futures

 


By Tim Garbutt

Despite $700M+ in cumulative funding over the years, the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) continues to underperform, obfuscate, and stagnate. The 2024 report reveals worrying signs of ineffectiveness, especially as we approach the critical Mines 2030 deadline. Here's why it's time to push for radical overhaul — or risk drifting into irrelevance.

1. The Numbers Game: $41M for 14 Nations — But Where’s the Substance?

  • 591 landmines removed globally: that’s barely 2 landmines per day across all 14 active countries — a stunningly low output and c.$69,000(!) per landmine.

  • No listed staff or admin costs for UNMAS offices in New York or Geneva — implying either hidden overheads or ghost structures - and very incomplete accounts.

  • No named email contacts in official documents: UNMAS offices resemble black boxes, immune to scrutiny.

Add to this: key nations like Cyprus are still listed - though demining halted there in 2017(!). That either reflects legacy accounting or a disturbing sinecure culture for 8 years.

2. Cyprus & the Sinecure Syndrome

  • No active demining, yet Cyprus remains funded. Is this diplomatic inertia, or UNMAS leveraging host nation perks?

  • The terrain is LIDAR-compatible — ideal for pilot testing new tech — yet no such trials have been proposed.

3. Thai War Echoes & Finnish Silence

  • Thai-Cambodia border zones remain UXO hotspots from Cold War conflict. Sweden’s sporadic support deserves credit — but UNMAS is absent.

  • Finland, sitting at NATO’s frontier and with Cold War stockpiles, gets no mention in mine action discourse — another blind spot.

4. LIDAR Speed vs. UNMAS Drag

While LIDAR and UAV technologies revolutionize detection and mapping across defence sectors:

  • UNMAS hasn’t adopted them.

  • There’s no job creation strategy aligned with AI/LIDAR tech despite talent pools in UAE, UK, Finland.

  • UNMAS's own internal tech roadmap remains undisclosed — if it exists at all.

5. Disposal Metrics or Fluff?

The DRC reports disposal of “expired government ammo” — likely low-cost and non-technical. Is this a performance metric padding exercise?

More troubling: the lack of geographic breakdown in mine removals. Were 500 of the 591 in one country? Are other states being neglected? Just one busy deminer?

6. Closed Doors & FOI Bouncebacks

  • FOI requests to Geneva and NYC bounce back or go unanswered.

  • No public-facing financial breakdown.

  • No visible reform efforts or donor accountability.

This opacity isn’t just a governance concern — it’s a betrayal of the entire 2030 mine-free ambition.

7. Call to Action — Reform Before Irrelevance

To salvage the mission:

Immediate Steps:

  • Demand named contacts, staff budgets, and office cost breakdowns via FOI and 5th Committee inquiries.

  • Publish country-level clearance data quarterly.

  • Initiate pilot LIDAR mapping in Cyprus with Nordic or ASEAN firms.

Long-Term Fixes:

  • Reform UNMAS with tech-driven workflows and accountability structures.

  • Introduce public dashboards for clearance progress.

  • Align mine action with UN sustainability and peacebuilding goals — not just backroom budgets.

Mines 2030 must mean something — not just another deadline drifting into institutional amnesia.

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