Closing of the 20th International Meeting of National Mine Action Programme Directors and United Nations Advisers (NDM-UN)

Thank you, Agnès [Director, UNMAS],
Excellencies,
Dear Colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen:

I am pleased to be back with you on this last day of your meeting. This meeting has shown the evolution of mine action over the last twenty years and the ability of this deeply committed community of humanitarians to respond to new and emerging threats. The personal testimonies we heard both at the opening and today were particularly inspiring.

Over the last few days, you have discussed new conflicts as well as protracted crises, where we observe new means of warfare and often a shocking disregard of basic humanitarian principles. Re-establishing respect for humanitarian law is a major challenge for all of us – particularly here in Geneva where much of international humanitarian law was born. As mine action leaders you can make your voices heard in this struggle and you do.

The urgent need for a people-centred and humanitarian approach to global politics is nowhere more evident than in Syria. Despite the painfully slow progress towards a political solution over the last six years, I am very proud, as my colleagues are, of the important work of humanitarian actors in Syria such as UNMAS, which leads the humanitarian mine action response there, coordinating the sector and innovating in extremely difficult circumstances.

Unfortunately, Syria is not the only country where mine action continues to be desperately needed while funding remains scarce. This forum has highlighted that too many mine action programmes, most of them in protracted conflicts, remain underfunded. And in this respect, I commend Italy, the Chair of the Mine Action Support Group, for its active leadership of the donor community and UNMAS for advising them on ways to increase cost-effectiveness.

We need to be smarter in the way we use the scarce resources that we have. This is why the Secretary-General’s focus on conflict prevention is so important: only by reducing needs for mine action and other humanitarian aid will we really manage to put people at the centre in the long run. De-mining is a crucial aspect of stabilizing societies and reducing the risk for conflict to spiral out of control.

I congratulate you on this important meeting and thank the organizers: UNMAS and the inter-agency coordination group. I would also like to thank the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining for their sponsorship programme of a number of National Directors. And lastly, thank you to all of you - the chairs of panels, and panellists as well as UN entities, member states, NGO and private sector partners – for having made this meeting a success. You have shown resolve to mobilize new methodologies and technologies to find innovative ways of tackling new challenges. This is what we need for a more peaceful and prosperous future.

Thank you very much and see you next year.