Introduction to Advisory Comments

The following comments are from people with extensive experience in victim assistance program planning and mine action database management. They were invited to attend the workshop but were unable to do so. However, they agreed to review the background materials provided to workshop participants, including the MAIC January 2002 report, Managing Landmine Casualty Data , and the goals and tasks set forth for the workshop. They sent the workshop organizer, Dr. Suzanne Fiederlein, their comments on the project and their perspectives on landmine casualty data collection and management.

In addition to the following written comments that were reprinted and distributed to the workshop participants, Ms. Becky Jordan of Landmine Survivors Network, provided comments to Dr. Fiederlein via a phone conversation on May 10. Ms. Jordan's comments, which Dr. Fiederlein shared with the working group on May 13, focused on the need to recognize that casualty data collected by IMSMA and other mine action data systems provides only part of the information needed to plan victim assistance programs; it is only one piece of the puzzle. Mine action data collection can be quite useful to get information on new victims, but it does not go back and survey past victims. It's also important to remember that tracking casualty data is different from tracking victim assistance, which IMSMA does not do. While Ms. Jordan was unable to participate in the workshop, she attended the side meeting at the Intersessional Programme in Geneva on May 29 where the recommendations produced by the workshop were open to discussion and comment.

Those people contributing written comments to the workshop participants:

Mr. Michael Boddington of POWER: The International Limb Project. His comments about the MAIC project and observations about the casualty database program in Laos are accompanied by five forms he sent that illustrate the types of data his organization is collecting in Laos, and he explains future plans for the database system.

Ms. Judith Dunne, currently of the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) but formerly of the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) demining program in Northern Iraq. She shares comments based on her experiences working with the program in Northern Iraq, where she was the victim assistance officer.

Mr. Daniel Eriksson, currently at the European Commission, DG Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy but formerly based at the MACC in Kosovo. His comments and the exchange of messages between him and Mr. Reto Haeni, IMSMA Project Coordinator at ETHZ, and Dr. Fiederlein focus on clarifying specific details about IMSMA and the different purposes for which victim data is used.