Operations

UXO LAO: OPERATIONS

UXO Lao operations reflect the generic principles of humanitarian mine action:

ROVING TASKS – removes and destroys surface UXO. Increases the confidence and safety of people living in UXO affected areas to engage in their livelihoods and lead normal lives.

AREA CLEARANCE TASKS – Searches for and removes UXO under the ground using detectors. Increases the amount of land available for agriculture and other social-economic development projects.

UXO RISK EDUCATION TASKS (COMMUNITY AWARENESS OR CA) – Raise the awareness of people living in UXO affected villages. CA teams utilise various methods to communicate their message and include puppet shows, songs, dances, and games. The teams support survey operations by noting locations of UXO pinpointed by villagers during CA activities.

SURVEY TASKS – two person teams conduct survey tasks. They provide detailed maps and information on locations of UXO reported. The enhanced technical survey (ETS) task is a new methodology developped by UXO Lao in 2007. ETS teams evaluate a clearance request by studying available UXO records for a particular area (bombing data, reported UXO, and UXO victims.) Combined with a 25% sampling of the land area, this leads to the request being either: (1) tasked to an area clearance team or (2) designated low priority/ low UXO impact threat (for possible clearance at some future date.) If the ETS team determines the task to be low priority, landowners are advised that there is little reason to believe that UXO is present and that they may start using the land. The ETS makes more land available faster than area clearance and utilises less resources.

UXO Lao complies with the national standards implemented by the UXO National Regulatory Authority (NRA.)