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\u201cIt\u2019s a double win when demining \u2013 which is always a good thing \u2013 is linked to sustainable agriculture and energy security, even when a conflict is ongoing,\u201d according to Chris Loughran and Camille Wallen.<\/p>\n
Since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the nation has become one of the world\u2019s most heavily mined places with an estimated\u00a0<\/strong>25 per cent of the country<\/strong> contaminated with mines<\/strong> \u2013 an area four times the size of Switzerland.<\/p>\n The report, titled\u00a0Enhancing Mine Action Finance in Ukraine<\/em>, explores novel financing solutions aimed at advancing Ukraine’s national mine action strategy to solve the massive demining challenge faced by the nation.<\/p>\n Commissioned by UNDP at the request of Ukraine\u2019s economic ministry, it scopes specific models that could reasonably be taken forward for potential application.<\/p>\n Since the First and Second World Wars, the Ukrainian Government has been managing risks associated with unexploded ordnance, but the current full-scale war is a whole new level of complexity, according to UNDP.<\/p>\n Typically, 30 to 50 per cent of unexploded ordnance fails to detonate<\/strong>, but the rest remain active, with any physical impact potentially provoking an explosion, Alexander Lobov, a mine action expert with UNDP,\u00a0said in an interview with UN News last year.<\/p>\n This makes the sheer size of the invasion in Ukraine particularly dangerous and demanding, with a frontline of well over a thousand kilometers<\/strong> according to\u00a0Paul Heslop, Chief Technical Advisor for the UNDP Mine Action Programme in Ukraine.<\/p>\n In\u00a0another interview earlier this year with UN News, Mr. Heslop, who has spent thirty years clearing mines in hotspots ranging from Mozambique to Afghanistan, described all those experiences as a \u201cdress rehearsal\u201d for Ukraine \u2013 his current and most challenging mission yet.<\/p>\nEverything prior was \u2018dress rehearsal\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n