Sustainable 101:: Victim Assistance 10 Years On

SUSTAINABLE 101:
VICTIM ASSISTANCE 10 YEARS ON
BRIDGING THE GAP

BETWEEN POLICY AND PRACTICE
December 2010
Copyright : © December 2010 by Handicap International ASBL-VZW
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SUSTAINABLE 101:
VICTIM ASSISTANCE 10 YEARS ON
BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN POLICY AND PRACTICE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 3
2. INTRODUCTION 4
3. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AND ITS OBJECTIVES 5
4. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6
5. METHODOLOGY10
6. ANALYTICAL ASSESSMENT –
PART I: THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT CYCLE 12
7. ANALYTICAL ASSESSMENT –
PART II: CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES 19
8. CASE STUDIES 23
9. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 30
10. REFERENCES 36
SUSTAINABLE 101: VICTIM ASSISTANCE 10 YEARS ON BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN POLICY AND PRACTICE
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1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research team at Handicap International would like to thank all those local civil society
organisations (and their representatives) which agreed to participate in this study and willingly
shared information about their work and their achievements and challenges with us. We hope that
we have been able to do justice to the very important work these local organisations are undertaking
for persons with disabilities including landmine/explosive remnants of war survivors, all over the
world.
The team would also like to acknowledge the invaluable support provided by those local intermediary
organisations and individuals which acted as ‘information-providers’ and which enabled it to reach
otherwise inaccessible organisations and to surmount language and communication barriers.
Furthermore, the team would like to extend its thanks for the useful advice and feedback received
on both form and content from various individuals from Handicap International and the International
Campaign to Ban Landmines.
Last but not least, the research team would like to thank the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgium for
its financial support for this study.
The Research Team
Joohi Haleem
Jennifer Reeves
Stéphane de Greef
November 2010
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2. INTRODUCTION
Recent studies such as “Voices from the Ground: Landmine and Explosive Remnants of War Survivors
speak out on Victim Assistance” undertaken by Handicap International in 2009 and annual reporting on
progress conducted by the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor show that even 10 years after the
Mine Ban Treaty’s (MBT) entry into force, victim assistance for the survivors of landmines/explosive
remnants of war (ERW) has remained one of the sectors which shows the least demonstrable progress.
“During the Mine Ban Treaty’s first decade, victim assistance (VA) has made the least progress of all the
major sectors of mine action, with both funding and the provision of assistance falling far short of what
was needed.”1 There is still far too little knowledge and understanding of survivor needs in the very
different contexts where survivors live worldwide, and there is little to no assessment of the impact of the
VA initiatives which have been undertaken to date, to see what works, what does not, and why. This lack
of understanding of context-specific needs has meant that by and large, most survivors feel that their
needs are not being met2 and living as they often do in remote and poorly serviced areas, they remain
marginalised on the fringes of mainstream society.
This particular study “Sustainable 101: Victim Assistance 10 years on” aims to begin the process of
mapping and assessing the current situation on service provision to persons with disabilities including
mine/ERW survivors in 29 affected countries around the world. It is intended to supplement gaps in our
knowledge and understanding of the challenges, constraints and opportunities which local civil society
organisations face, and to build upon the available body of data and information on victim assistance
and disability-related service provision in the selected affected countries. The study and its various
outputs address multiple audiences: the primary target-group of national service-providers through the
accompanying online directory and tool-kit, and secondarily, the donors, policymakers and the
international humanitarian sector through the findings presented in this report.
The project was formulated to deliver three separate but mutually reinforcing products in order to
best present the information collected in the course of this study:
• An online directory providing profile information on all the civil society organisations
identified (about 175 so far) in 29 affected countries around the world, with an
accompanying tool-kit compiling available resources on victim assistance and
disability service provision,
• An analytical assessment of organisational performance in a select sample of case

study countries, and
• A BBC documentary titled “Laos’ Bitter Harvest” highlighting the scale of the problem
of unexploded ordnance (UXO) contamination for affected communities in the severely
affected country of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR).
The 29 mine/ERW affected countries covered by this study are as follows:
Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Colombia,
Croatia, Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guinea Bissau, Iraq, Jordan, Laos,
Lebanon, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Peru, Senegal, Serbia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Thailand,
Uganda, Vietnam and Yemen.
1 See ICBL, Landmine Monitor Report 2009, Executive Summary, Special Ten-Year Review, Victim Assistance, p.53.
2 Handicap International, Voices from the Ground: Landmine and Explosive Remnants of War Survivors speak out on Victim Assistance, September 2009.
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3. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AND ITS OBJECTIVES
The primary objectives of this study are:
Mapping of local civil society initiatives: To raise awareness of the initiatives and projects being undertaken by
local civil society actors such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based
organisations (CBOs), survivor associations, and disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) in order
to give their work greater visibility and exposure on the international stage, and to provide a clear
and concise picture of existing local knowledge, capacities, and constraints to donors, decision-
makers, policymakers and other humanitarian and development actors.
Knowledge-sharing and Information exchange: To provide organisations with a discussion platform to exchange
ideas, experiences and perspectives from different contexts and the opportunity to learn from such
exchanges; to generate a dialogue on the major issues and concerns facing civil society practitioners
and to provide them with a ‘voice’ on the international stage, through their inclusion into the online
directory and social networking site.
Capacity-building: To facilitate the capacity-building and strengthening of member organisations and other
users of the online directory and social networking site: through a comprehensive compilation of
existing resources and links on victim assistance and programme management into a constantly
updated tool-kit; through the provision of e-discussion boards encouraging an exchange of ideas
and information (especially South-South cooperation) on best practices and lessons learnt; by
providing notifications of upcoming trainings, conferences and workshops; and by enabling
member organisations to directly maintain their online profiles and to regularly upload information
about their achievements and challenges.
The Sustainable 101 study documents and assesses the work being carried out by national and
local NGOs and other civil society actors in the 29 mine/ERW affected countries listed above. These
organisations provide services relevant to but not exclusively for survivors. This is reflective of
common practice whereby most such organisations in the field provide services to all persons with
disabilities, regardless of the cause of disability.
However, within the broad lens of disability service provision, there are ample reasons to justify a
sharper focus on victim assistance service provision. Firstly, the mine action sector often has
specific knowledge about affected people and communities, including knowledge which may not
be generally available such as the number, location, and needs of survivors. This information may
have been gathered in affected communities by clearance teams, and through the undertaking of
community-based mine risk education (MRE) and awareness programmes. Secondly, survivors can
provide peer support to each other to help overcome the sometimes specific forms of trauma
associated with such injuries – they are best placed to understand the situation and needs of fellow
survivors. Thirdly, advocacy by the mine action sector helps to ensure that survivors’ rights are
addressed and upheld where they otherwise might not be due to the general marginalisation of
persons with disabilities and their lack of access to the services and support they require. Finally,
providing services through victim assistance funding can also be seen as beneficial to other persons
with disabilities, as without this VA funding, certain services might not otherwise exist or be
sustained.
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4. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY:

THE NEED FOR WELL-INFORMED DECISION-MAKING AND IMPLEMENTATION FOR VICTIM ASSISTANCE
Over the years, while the normative understanding of victim assistance has evolved
significantly with each successive 5-year Action Plan 3 – expanding beyond the notion of the
provision of care and support to survivors to include sustained efforts to build up their
capacities - the development of a comprehensive operational understanding has been more
challenging, encompassing as it does some of the most fundamental human rights and needs,
and a broad range of services and activities 4. This lack of clarity has been further compounded
by the fact that there is not one natural home for victim assistance, with responsibilities for
the coordination, planning, implementation and monitoring of VA activities often being shared
on an ad hoc basis between the Mine Action Centre and the relevant national Line Ministry.
Most importantly however, the apparent lack of clarity stems from a fundamental contradiction
between the political and practical conception of victim assistance. So while on the one hand,
meeting the VA obligations set out by the Mine Ban Treaty and the Convention on Cluster
Munitions includes the establishment of national coordination mechanisms and focal points,
the drafting and implementation of national VA plans (with the inclusion of survivors), and the
earmarking of specific VA funding (by donor and affected states), on the other hand, there are
calls for all efforts to be integrated into mainstream development processes if they are to have
a sustained and lasting impact on the lives of affected people and communities. The
International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC)
have long advocated for a “twin-track approach” to inclusive development and victim
assistance. 5 This means ensuring that all persons with disabilities including mine/ERW
survivors are enabled to participate fully and meaningfully in all phases of the development
cycle (policymaking, planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation), while at the
same time, having access to specialized programmes and services to build up their capacities
to engage actively in these processes.
Practitioners in the field nevertheless recognise the need to ensure that VA service provision
does not result in the creation of a parallel set of services and facilities exclusive to mine/ERW
survivors, as it risks entrenching prevalent inequalities and discriminatory societal patterns.
This is borne out by the results of this study which show that more of than 80% of the
respondent organisations make no distinctions amongst their target-group(s) on the basis of
the cause of disability.
The contradiction lies in the fact that having separate or partially separate funding streams for
victim assistance entails separate processes of monitoring and evaluation if one is to truly
3 See www.mineaction.org/downloads/1/Nairobi_Action_Plan%5B1%5D.pdf and http://www.mineaction.org/doc.asp?d=1300

4 Ambassador Susan Eckey of Norway, “Victim assistance is a human rights issue that aims to address the rights and needs of people who are often marginalised and
living in vulnerable situations in countries with limited resources and many competing priorities”, Enhancing Cooperation and Assistance as concerns Victim Assistance,
Discussion Paper, Intersessional Standing Committee Meetings, 24 June 2010, p.1.
5 Inclusive Development and the Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities,
prepared by the IDDC Task Group on the UN Convention, 2005, in Victim Assistance in Inclusive Development: What does this mean for advocates?, ICBL Briefing Paper,
28 October 2010.
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assess the impact and build in greater accountability and transparency of all the initiatives
undertaken with those funds. This presents all implementing organisations, international and
national, with the dilemma of having to account for service provision targeted at mine/ERW
survivors while at the same time, trying to ensure that the activities they undertake are non-
discriminatory towards other vulnerable and ‘at risk’ groups in a population.
Another challenge faced by organisations is how to define their most appropriate and effective
role, a role which complements and supplements the role played by the other actors in the
process, most importantly among them the state and its agencies, without duplicating efforts
while ensuring maximum coverage and impact. As this research shows, most local civil society
service providers (at least 85%) are attempting to deliver a combination of services
(encompassing the six pillars of VA, namely emergency care, physical rehabilitation, psycho-
social care, economic inclusion, advocacy, and data collection), either in response to
perceived needs and gaps resulting largely from state neglect or incapacity to deliver, or to tap
into available funding streams, regardless of whether they have the capacity to do so in a
sustainable manner.
However this leads one to question the ultimate effectiveness and sustainability of such
initiatives, as one single civil society organisation may not always have the optimal set of
skills, expertise and resources, both human and financial, in order to deliver services as wide-
ranging as physical rehabilitation and livelihoods recovery, consistently in a manner which
best fulfils the needs of the people on the ground. Additionally while most civil society
organisations work in ways which by their very nature, are more community-driven and
grassroots-based, better coordination of both state and civil society initiatives can lead to
greater economies of scale and wider impact. Moreover, a stronger state-civil society nexus
can strengthen government capacity to provide adequate and efficient services to its
population, and ensure that “popular organisation and capacity of poor people to assert their
claims to public resources, and to hold government accountable” 6 is reinforced and
strengthened.
In order to determine the most appropriate and effective role in victim assistance for a local
civil society organisation, it is first and foremost imperative to develop a better understanding
of real and actual needs on the ground as well as to improve our knowledge of the efforts that
have been undertaken to date to meet the needs of people and communities affected by
mines/ERW as well as other persons with disabilities. Only through a more comprehensive
understanding of the existing ‘baseline’ can it be possible to develop future strategies and
directions, to reinforce existing capacities and to address inherent gaps and shortcomings.
“In order to better understand the scope of services available in affected States, a
comprehensive mapping of all actors involved in services relevant to “assisting the victims” is
needed”. 7 This study aims to highlight the invaluable work being carried out by one such actor
in the process, namely local civil society organisations in 29 countries around the world,
organisations which have been active in the field offering a range of services and facilities
within their available resources. This study by no means represents a comprehensive mapping
of all civil society organisations active in the domain of service provision. It should be viewed
instead as the beginnings of the process of compiling and consolidating information on such
6 Collier, 2000 as quoted in Solava Ibrahim and David Hulme, Has civil society helped the poor?–A review of the roles and contributions of civil society to poverty reduction,
Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper 114, University of Manchester, March 2010, p.10.
7 Ambassador Susan Eckey of Norway, Enhancing Cooperation and Assistance as concerns Victim Assistance, Discussion Paper, Intersessional Standing Committee
Meetings, 24 June 2010.
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initiatives, and should be further expanded eventually to include other key stakeholders such
as government agencies and international non-governmental organisations in order to be truly
comprehensive.
This study would also like to call attention to the key issue of the time-line or the time-bound
way in which victim assistance activities are often undertaken, in recognition of the fact that
for those whose lives have been affected by the impact of mines/ERW, the effects are, more
often than not, lifelong and permanent. While land clearance and stockpile destruction are
activities which are finite in nature, victim assistance consists of services and activities which
need to be provided over a much longer time span, and therefore it calls for a fundamentally
different approach and response to funding, policy-making and implementation than the
other areas of the mine action sector. This must be taken into consideration when providing
support for locally driven VA/disability initiatives and programmes, the vast majority of which
as this study goes on to show, continue to suffer from unsustained and irregular funding flows.
A PARADIGM SHIFT
The Sustainable 101 study’s focus on highlighting the work undertaken by local civil society
actors such as survivor associations, self-help groups, DPOs and CBOs, on victim assistance
and disability is in keeping with recent trends in the discourse and practice of victim
assistance. These trends suggest a paradigm shift echoing the paradigm shift taking place
globally within the larger disability sector from the old charity-based model of development to
the social or rights-based model advocated under the Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities (CRPD).
In this rights-based model of development, persons with disabilities are viewed not as
‘beneficiaries’ but as ‘rights-holders’ playing a more proactive and engaged role in the
processes determining and influencing their lives. “The human rights-based approach
requires that rights-holders living in poverty are fully involved and take action in determining
their needs and the responses that will be provided to answer them. This is in stark contrast to
a top-down, service-led approach where such decisions are made externally and where poor
people do not participate in the processes that affect, simply because they are wrongly
considered to be mere beneficiaries or recipients. This approach undermines peoples’ dignity
and their confidence to think, plan, and negotiate. Though providing people with new schools,
wells and boats can serve them on one level, leaving them with less dignity and power to
negotiate with others is a failure on another level.” 8
What are the implications of such a paradigm shift for the prevailing policymaking and practice
of victim assistance? It connotes a major shift in the balance and dynamics of power (of
decision-making and access) by placing people and communities affected by mines/ERW right
at the centre of the entire process – framing and defining them not merely as the passive
‘victims’ of these weapons expecting their needs to be fulfilled in compliance with the
obligations imposed by the two treaties on all States Parties, but as active, engaged members
of their communities and societies demanding and claiming their rights and entitlements.
Such an approach is key to overcoming the often inherent and entrenched forms of “multiple
and intersectional discrimination” 9 resulting from prevalent physical, socio-cultural,
behavioural, political and economic barriers and prejudices - that exclude and prevent
8 Action Aid, Human Rights-based approaches to poverty eradication and development, June 2008, p.7, http://actionaid-staging.rubylithcms.com/rubylith/files/HRBA%20
paper.pdf.
9 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Article 2, 2009.
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survivors and other persons with disabilities from accessing and enjoying their fundamental
rights and freedoms. The key question then becomes one of ensuring equitable access and
equality of opportunity and choice for all.
Improving access, opportunity and choice should be seen not only in terms of improved
physical accessibility, but as encompassing:
• Improved access to high-quality education, information, technologies and

training;
• Better nutrition and health;
• A more cohesive and supportive social environment;
• More secure access to, and better management of natural resources;
• Better access to basic and facilitating infrastructure;
• More secure access to financial resources; and
• A policy and institutional environment that supports multiple livelihood strategies

and promotes equitable access to competitive markets for all. 10
As local civil society organisations have more potential to be representative of poor and
marginalized groups in society (as compared to state structures or international humanitarian
actors), and can thereby be seen as working directly toward the establishment of processes
and mechanisms that facilitate and improve access, opportunity and choice for these groups,
it then becomes imperative to recognize their work and to strengthen their capacities for
greater effectiveness, impact and coverage. At the same time, it is important to point out here
that any such capacity-building should seek to enhance the facilitative role of civil society
actors rather than enabling them to supplant the state, which must ultimately be held
responsible as a ‘duty holder’ for the provision of basic services to its population and for the
fulfillment of its rights.
10 Department for International Development (DFID-UK), the DFID Approach to Sustainable Livelihoods, National Strategies for Sustainable Development, 2004,
http://www.nssd.net/references/SustLiveli/DFIDapproach.htm#Top.
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5. METHODOLOGY
In order to meet the twin objectives of mapping and assessment, the data collection for the study
was conducted in two separate processes using two different questionnaires. The first questionnaire
– the PROFILE questionnaire – was developed to collect basic information about the respondent
organisation, its contact details, the services it provides, its beneficiary target group(s), its
management and staffing structures, its funding mechanisms, etc. Each organisation was
additionally asked to provide case-studies of ‘best practices’ or innovative projects that it had
undertaken or was currently undertaking. The Profile questionnaires were developed in English and
then translated into nine languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Nepalese, Khmer,
Vietnamese, Thai and Dari). The dissemination of the questionnaires was either done by the
research team by email, telephone or direct contact wherever possible (as in the case of Cambodia
where one of the team members was based), or through local intermediaries or ‘information
providers’. These local information providers were mainly drawn from Handicap International’s
existing network of contacts in the field, and consisted of organisations or individuals involved in
delivering services to persons with disabilities, such as the ICBL’s national Victim Assistance Focal
Points, disability organisations or survivor associations. In some select cases, such as in Angola,
where direct contact with organisations proved difficult to establish or where a suitable organisation
could not be identified to take over the task of data collection, a consultant was briefly employed to
obtain information from the relevant organisations.
The information collected through this process was used to develop individual online ‘profiles’ for
each of the respondent or ‘member’ organisations. In the interests of transparency, each respondent
organisation was informed at the outset of the intended use of the information being requested
from them. By making the directory available on-line and providing each member organisation with
the option to maintain and update its own profile, the project hopes to ensure that information
provided in the directory remains relevant and up-to-date. The social networking aspect of the
website is designed to encourage dialogue and debate between the different member organisations
and to facilitate greater transfer and exchange of knowledge and information, giving practitioners
the opportunity to learn from each other’s experience. Over time other organisations are expected
to enlist in the directory once the value of the greater visibility and exposure afforded to their work
and the increased opportunities for knowledge-sharing becomes apparent.
The second, almost simultaneous phase of data collection was the analytical phase for which an
ANALYTICAL questionnaire was developed using the project management cycle as a basis. This
phase was conceived as an evaluative or assessment exercise to critically analyse the functioning
of the organisations and to identify any challenges they might face in the effective and sustainable
implementation of their activities. It is hoped that an improved understanding of the ground
realities of VA and disability service-provision will help donors, policymakers and other international
actors to provide support which is both timely and relevant.
With this purpose in mind and based on the project management cycle, the analytical questionnaire
was divided into sections, each assessing the respondent organisation’s capacity to conduct
adequate needs assessments for its target population, and based upon these, to plan, execute and
monitor its activities. Respondents were also asked to reflect on those past and current funding
trends which might impact on their activities, on the involvement of beneficiaries in their activities,
on their coordination with other national and/or international stakeholders (including networks),
on their capacity to train and retain staff, and on the challenges and opportunities posed by a host
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of factors, among them lack of political will, unsupportive legislative frameworks, lack of access to
information, discriminatory attitudes towards disability, and rampant corruption and nepotism.
There were two key differences between the two phases of data-gathering: one, the information
collected during the second more ‘analytical’ phase was kept confidential and all respondents were
duly informed of this, and two, the sample size for the second phase was deliberately limited to a
few select countries chosen from the 29 countries covered by the first phase of the study. Ensuring
the confidentiality of the respondents was deemed necessary to enable them to give as accurate a
picture as possible of their current realities despite the, at times, politically sensitive nature of the
questions and answers. The decision to limit the sample size was taken in order to develop a more
detailed understanding of the situation in the case study countries, and to use the context-specific
findings (through ‘case study analysis’) to generate more generic, cross-cutting themes of interest.
While this report on the analytical assessment largely draws upon the findings of the second data-
gathering phase, relevant information has also been used from the profile questionnaires completed
by respondent organisations in the initial phase.
SELECTION CRITERIA FOR RESEARCH SAMPLE FOR ANALYTICAL STUDY
The purposive sampling method, prioritizing logistics and access, was employed to select the ‘case
study countries’ for the analytical phase of the study. The selection of countries was based on
practical considerations of logistics and access as well as the need to ensure that the sample was
adequately reflective of the regional diversity within the group of 29 focus countries. Even more
importantly, the need to preserve the confidentiality of respondents and the integrity of the data
collection methods by reducing the risk of bias or prejudice was taken into consideration. Therefore
for the analytical phase, it was considered essential for the research team to have direct access to
the respondent pool rather than relying on the intermediary information providers used for the
initial mapping phase. Direct access for data gathering was necessarily subject to the constraints
imposed by linguistic, geographical, and communications barriers. Additionally there were
budgetary and security constraints on direct access to certain locations. It is important to point out
here that in drawing conclusions for a more generic analysis, the research team tried to ensure that
the specific conditions of each context, such as the prevailing level and quality of services available
to people with disabilities including survivors, the political, socio-cultural and economic
environment of each case study country, and the existing level of capacity of local civil society
actors and the specific nature of the challenges faced by them, were taken into account.
Members of the research team conducted field missions to Lebanon, Croatia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and Cambodia, where data was gathered through semi-structured interviews and
focus group discussions using the analytical questionnaire as a basis. Analytical questionnaires
were also completed by a small number of respondent organisations in Afghanistan, Angola and
Jordan, where interviews were conducted either by consultants hired by the project or through
direct electronic communication between the research team and the respondents. Logistical and
budgetary constraints prevented the research team from covering Latin America in the second
phase of the data-gathering process.
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6. ANALYTICAL ASSESSMENT
PART I: THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT CYCLE
A total of about 45 organisations in the four main (Lebanon, Cambodia, Croatia and Bosnia
and Herzegovina) and three secondary case-study countries (Afghanistan, Angola and Jordan)
were assessed for their strengths and weaknesses in each of the different stages of the project
management cycle namely, needs assessment, planning, implementation, and monitoring and
evaluation. The findings of this assessment are discussed in Part I of the Analytical Assessment.
Additionally the respondent organisations were asked to reflect upon a few cross-cutting
thematic issues of relevance to them namely, survivor/beneficiary inclusion, meeting the
needs of persons with disabilities including mine/ERW survivors, and coordination
mechanisms and their role in these mechanisms. These responses are discussed in Part II of
the Analytical Assessment.
UNDERSTANDING NEEDS AND CAPACITIES
Cartagena Action Plan (CAP) #24: Enhance the collection of appropriate data to develop,
implement, monitor and evaluate the implementation of relevant national policies, plans and
legal frameworks, and link such data with national injury surveillance and other relevant data
collection systems.
As the Landmine Monitor’s research has made apparent year after year, the planning and
implementation of victim assistance activities at the national level has not often been guided
by any comprehensive understanding of existing needs and capacities. Reliable data on the
number of affected people and communities needing support, their location, and the kind of
support they need is simply not available in most countries. Although most countries maintain
national casualty databases, these databases do not go beyond providing incidence data for
each casualty or survivor with there being little to no follow-up data available on the post-
incident conditions and needs of survivors. There is also insufficient linkage of casualty
databases to databases which may be maintained by other sectors (such as the health,
education, finance, and labour and employment ministries), or those maintained by
organisations themselves. Even when a casualty database is regularly maintained and
updated, there are often issues with how the data is used, shared with and accessed by the
different stakeholders (government, local civil society, international humanitarian community
etc.). Due to a lack of coordination and information exchange between ministries and
government agencies, and between government and civil society organisations in most case-
study countries, and due to an insufficient disaggregation of data collection on the basis of
gender, age, ethnicity, livelihood profiles, geography, etc., whatever available data there is on
mine/ERW survivors rarely feeds into national statistics on poverty, gender, disability and the
distribution and quality of basic services for all population groups. The lack of adequate
coordination between the different stakeholders also means that there is very little knowledge
at national and even local levels, of existing capacities and resources and of the different
initiatives being undertaken. This often leads to either duplication and overlapping or
persistent gaps in service delivery, as a result of which, the needs of traditionally marginalised
and deprived groups may continue to be overlooked.
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The lack of coordinated and comprehensive needs assessments mechanisms is a recurring
problem in almost all the case-study countries, but was especially cited as being a major
challenge in accessing information by respondents in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Croatia
and Angola. In Angola for instance, a mine victim survey is planned for this year by the Inter-
sectoral Commission on Demining and Humanitarian Assistance (CNIDAH), but many of the
Angolan organisations interviewed for the S101 research were not aware of it, although it is
due to take place in their area of operation.
Another challenge to collecting reliable data on the real needs of persons with disabilities
including mine/ERW survivors is posed by prevalent socio-cultural belief systems and
discriminatory attitudes and behavioural patterns towards disability and in particular
disability and gender, due to which the marginalization and exclusion suffered by most
persons with disabilities goes unacknowledged and unchecked. This was found to be the case
in countries like BiH, Croatia, Cambodia and Afghanistan where most respondent organisations
mentioned the difficulty inherent in having disability issues sufficiently prioritized on the
national agenda, and in Angola, where it was more difficult to involve female beneficiaries in
the consultation process. In Jordan cultural issues were also listed as a challenge to collecting
information, and it was considered important to be sensitive to traditional cultures and
beliefs.
Funding issues at the project inception stage also, often posed a challenge to conducting
comprehensive needs assessments with one respondent organisation pointing out that
“understanding the needs takes too much time and we have to do it without resources as most
donors do not support this phase”.
The majority of the organisations surveyed claimed to know the needs of their target group(s)
and intended beneficiaries because they are “from the area, have first-hand knowledge of the
local community and context, and work at the grassroots level.” This information is often more
exhaustive and detailed than what most existing databases are able to provide, and working
directly and sometimes through peer support, with affected survivors and communities on the
ground also, enables local civil society organisations to gather detailed information on their
needs. In Angola, the respondents said that it was best to use participatory methods to collect
information for needs assessments with one organisation describing its use of a “Rapid
Participatory Diagnosis” approach to understanding the scale and scope of the problem. In
contexts such as Angola, Jordan and Afghanistan, it was also deemed important to consult
local traditional leaders in the community consultation process. In Angola and Lebanon, most
respondents were of the opinion that information was best collected by local people using
local languages. One faith-based organisation in Angola worked through the church network,
while another mentioned that it would be useful to have access to reports of previous projects
undertaken by other NGOs, government agencies and local civil society actors in order to learn
from their experiences in providing services to persons with disabilities including mine/ERW
survivors.
While the value of the grassroots knowledge which most local disability/VA service providers
draw upon cannot be denied, at the same time, it is important to recognise that there may be
a risk of entrenching prevalent inequities and power imbalances and further marginalising the
most vulnerable as the people working for these local organisations may either belong to the
local power elites themselves or they may be reluctant to challenge the existing power
dynamics in the region. It is thus imperative to balance out existing local knowledge with
exhaustive needs assessments using vulnerability and poverty mapping tools.
13
PLANNING
CAP Action #22: Develop, if they have not yet done so, a comprehensive national plan of action
that addresses all aspects of victim assistance with objectives that are specific, measurable,
achievable, realistic, and time bound, ensuring that such a plan takes into account broader
national policies, plans and legal frameworks that promote and guarantee the rights of
landmine victims in accordance with the highest international standards, and thereafter
implement, monitor and evaluate the implementation of such a plan.
Organisational planning
Up to 85% of the organisations surveyed during the first phase of the data-gathering process
claimed to have formal strategic and work plans in place, ranging from 1-5 years in duration
and outlining the key objectives and activities of the organisation. These plans were developed
in consultation with staff members, and sometimes beneficiaries and even donors. Most of
the respondents also claimed that these plans were linked to national mine action/victim
assistance strategies or disability plans where they existed, though given the inadequate
level of coordination in most of the case-study countries, it was not clear to the research team
how these links were manifested and what was the influence of national plans on the setting
of organisational priorities. In case study countries such as BiH, a victim assistance sub-
strategy was drafted with the participation of a few key civil society organisations, but those
organisations which had not been involved in the drafting process, did not feel the need to
engage with the strategy and its objectives in any capacity in the course of their own activities.
None of the other disability organisations and associations representing those affected by war
was included in the plan either.
A number of respondents pointed out that they were not always able to meet all the objectives
of their plans due to a lack of funding and staff capacity implying that some of the planned
activities may have constituted a ‘wish list’ rather than being based on a realistic assessment
and understanding of what was possible within available resources. These respondents
admitted that this necessarily led to a decrease in their ability to deliver services effectively
with a corresponding narrowing of the beneficiary pool. Those respondents which said
however, that they developed realistic plans taking into consideration access to and
availability of resources - both human and financial - appeared to be more effective in meeting
their core objectives. An important point to consider here, and linked to earlier observations
on the lack of comprehensive needs assessments, is that while plans may be formulated and
implemented, if they are not truly responsive to the specific needs on the ground and do not
actively involve beneficiaries in the decision-making and implementation process, their
impact on improving the living conditions of their target group(s) can only be limited at best,
and detrimental at worst. However it was beyond the scope of this study to assess the
potential impact of some of these plans.
IMPLEMENTATION
Internal organisational capacities
By and large, most respondents (at least 75% of respondent organisations were dependent on
project-based grants for their survival) linked their limited organisational capacity to a lack of
sustained and regular funding for meeting their core costs as opposed to funding for project
activities. With a limited funding cycle determined by the duration of the project cycle, most
of the surveyed organisations found it difficult in practice to retain skilled and trained staff
14
and to invest resources to build their capacity for fundraising, proposal writing and donor
liaison, better communications, data management and research among other things. A number
of respondents also voiced the need for improving their technical skills and financial
management capacities. Erratic and variable funding flows were inevitably found to lead to
high staff turnover with a corresponding loss of knowledge and capacity, and an inability to
improve the quality of their service delivery, and caused some organisations to be reluctant
about widening their beneficiary pool despite a high demand for their services.
Some respondents said that they had had to rely on volunteers due to a lack of funding for
salaried staff. However, they did cite certain advantages of working with volunteers, particularly
when those volunteers were beneficiaries themselves, in terms of making activities more
inclusive and participatory.
Most of the respondent organisations seemed to have a good understanding of their particular
strengths and weaknesses and had made efforts (including partnering with international
organisations, employing external consultants and technical specialists, and enabling staff to
attend training courses and workshops) to build up capacity within the resources available to
them.
External factors affecting implementation
CAP Action #26: “Ensure that capacity building and training plans are developed and
implemented to promote high quality standards and availability of age-appropriate and
gender-sensitive services in all components of victim assistance, and enhance the capacity of
both women and men and national institutions charged with implementing national policies,
plans and legal frameworks, including through the provision of adequate resources.”
CAP Action #27: “Increase accessibility of both female and male landmine victims to quality
services and to overcome physical, social, cultural, economic and political barriers, with a
particular focus on rural and remote areas.”
Some of the most commonly cited external challenges to effective and sustainable
implementation included lack of effective national legal/policy frameworks (for the health and
education sectors, for the mine action sector, for the non-profit sector as a whole, disability
legislation etc.) or their inadequate enforcement, lack of political will at the national level,
lack of funding, lack of physical security in the operational environment, bureaucratic
constraints, lack of access to relevant information, logistics, geographical isolation, lack of
effective national coordination mechanisms, discriminatory attitudes towards beneficiaries
and corruption/nepotism. The extent to which these challenges exist or impact on
organisational capacity for implementation, varies from country to country and according to
each individual organisation’s capacities.
Ironically, some of the challenges that local service providers face were also constraints on
the S101 research. Thus in countries that face problems of physical insecurity due to conflict,
such as Iraq and Afghanistan, or where modes of transportation and communication were
difficult and unreliable, such as in Angola, it was more difficult to gather reliable and
comprehensive information for this study.
Geographical isolation and inaccessibility, often accompanied by physical insecurity, was

mentioned as being a major constraint to implementation in countries like Afghanistan and
Angola and largely accounted for the disparity in the quality and coverage of services between
rural and urban areas. In Angola, the problem of geographical isolation is compounded by the
lack of adequate infrastructure. The country is vast, road networks are poor and badly
15
maintained and the local service-providers do not have sufficient resources for transport.
Another significant challenge highlighted by respondents in Angola was the lack of internet
access, which they felt hampered their links with the international community and limited the
fundraising opportunities available to them.
As mentioned previously, a prevailing culture of discriminatory attitudes and taboos against

disability often posed a serious challenge to respondent organisations in BiH, Croatia,
Cambodia and Afghanistan, and made it difficult for them to access government resources or
to highlight the needs of people with disabilities in comparison to other disadvantaged groups
in the population.
A general lack of government capacity combined with limited understanding of needs on the
ground, lack of political will and inadequate resource mobilisation to plan, implement and
coordinate service delivery to persons with disabilities including mine/ERW survivors,
imposes huge constraints on the functioning of local civil society actors by obliging them to
fill in the gaps in service provision without having access to the resources and infrastructure
of the state. Besides the fundamental ‘rights-based’ issue of government responsibility and
duty in the domain of service provision, service delivery by civil society actors can never be
sustained in the long term owing to the latter’s “high dependence on external funding, the
difficulty of ‘going to scale’ and their inability to recover costs through user charges.” 11
Some civil society organisations have tried to resolve these external challenges through
advocacy to effect policy change at the national level, but with varying degrees of success.
Funding and financial sustainability
The majority of respondent organisations from all the case-study countries considered the
lack of regular sustained funding as a key concern, and in fact for many, it was the main
problem they reportedly faced (with at least 75% of surveyed organisations reliant on project-
based grants). As discussed earlier, a lack of funding was also seen to be one of the contributing
factors for the inability of some organisations to realise all their plans. Some of the respondent
organisations expressed a need to increase their capacity for fundraising and proposal writing
as they often found themselves restricted from accessing international donor funding owing to
overly complex international donor procedures or simply due to a lack of information about
available sources of funding. It is nevertheless important to highlight here the lack of
sustainability and excessive donor dependency caused by an over-reliance on grant-based
funding.
Several of the respondent organisations used a combination of funding mechanisms in order

to diversify their funding sources and to make up for any shortfalls in donor funding.
International non-governmental organisations (INGOs) and national governments were the 2
biggest donors for at least 30% and 20% of the respondent organisations respectively, with
foreign governments and private individual donations being the biggest source of funding for
about 10% of them. 12 About 5% of the organisations surveyed charged beneficiaries/users for
services provided, while another 5% of them undertook various income-generating activities
such as rental of office space etc.
11 Solava Ibrahim and David Hulme, Has civil society helped the poor?–A review of the roles and contributions of civil society to poverty reduction, Brooks World Poverty
Institute Working Paper 114, University of Manchester, March 2010, p.10.
12 The figures cited here are based upon responses received from about 170 organisations during the first ‘Profile’ phase of the data-gathering process.
16
There have been repeated calls for affected states to contribute long-term national funds to
victim assistance, and for donor states in a position to assist to increase multi-year funding
for victim assistance 13. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) in one of its
statements at the Intersessional Standing Committee Meetings of the Mine Ban Treaty in June
2010, incited countries to “not end your international cooperation efforts once a country has
finished its clearance obligations. Instead, continue to channel mine action funds to victim
assistance as victims’ needs will continue over the long term” 14. It highlighted the need to
“acknowledge that attitudes, practices and national resources will not be changed in a matter
of one or two years. Therefore ensure sustainability and effectiveness of VA projects by
committing to long term financial support.” 15
While it is possible to solicit and fundraise specifically for VA donor funding - some
organisations found it relatively easier to raise funds under the VA banner by invoking donor
obligations under the Mine Ban Treaty - the services offered by these organisations were not
limited to any one single group or community. In Colombia several donor-funded projects work
to strengthen capacity to meet the needs of mine/ERW survivors, but simultaneously also
benefit other persons with disabilities. Against this though, is the argument that funding
should not discriminate against people based on the cause of disability, but should be based
on need and has been a reason commonly cited by several big donors such as the European
Union, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and Department for International
Development (DFID), UK among others for their seeming reluctance to earmark funds
specifically for victim assistance activities.
Implementation carried out in ‘partnership’ with international organisations
Over the last 10 years, INGOs have played a significant role in helping to develop the capacities
of national NGOs and other civil society actors in several countries. This support has taken
several forms ranging from an INGO establishing operations and then handing over to national
management and ownership, to a close partnership with a national organisation, to the
provision of support more remotely as a donor.
Most respondent organisations in Lebanon, BiH, Croatia, Afghanistan and Cambodia were
generally positive about their experience of working with international organisations. The
benefits they mentioned included gaining of international experience and heightened
visibility, improved access to donor funding, and the enhanced ability to influence international
conventions and advocacy campaigns on a global level. Nevertheless, a few also mentioned
challenges such as those posed by the random, non-context specific application of
international concepts and standards at the local level, or by the different and sometimes
conflicting agendas of the INGO and its local implementing partner.
In Angola in particular, some of the survey participants expressed dissatisfaction with their
relationship with international organisations when asked to comment on the perceived
benefits and challenges of working in collaboration with them. Some of them felt imposed
upon by their international partners which in their view, were more willing to support projects
based on their own priorities rather than on the needs defined and identified by the national
partners and their beneficiary populations. This was also echoed in the responses received
13 Survivors’ Call to Action, Cartagena Summit on a Mine-free World, Colombia, 29 November-4 December 2009.
14 ICBL Statement on International Cooperation and Assistance - Victim Assistance, Intersessional Standing Committee Meetings, 25 June 2010, Geneva,
http://www.apminebanconvention.org/fileadmin/pdf/mbc/IWP/SC_june10/Speeches-Special/SpecialSession-VA-25June2010-ICBL.pdf.
15 Ibid.
17
from some organisations in Afghanistan. The respondents did not feel that such a manner of
working led to a real partnership approach. They were reluctant about participating in research
projects which did not yield any material or tangible benefits for their own work. However
some of the INGOs which were interviewed in the course of this study also experienced
difficulties, for instance, by being excluded from national coordination activities (e.g. in
Angola, an INGO was excluded from a VA evaluation workshop).
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
CAP Action #28: Monitor and evaluate progress regarding victim assistance within broader
national policies, plans and legal frameworks on an ongoing basis, encourage relevant States
Parties to report on the progress made, including resources allocated to implementation and
challenges in achieving their objectives, and encourage States Parties in a position to do so to
also report on how they are responding to efforts to address the rights and needs of mine
victims.
The internal monitoring and evaluation systems of the respondent organisations vary
considerably. The vast majority of them said that they know if their services are effectively
meeting the needs of beneficiaries from the feedback received from the beneficiaries
themselves. Some also used questionnaires or held feedback meetings. A few had more formal
monitoring systems in place with different indicators to monitor progress and impact.
On a more macro level, there appeared to be no nation-wide evaluations of VA activities in any

of the case-study countries, which was surprising, particularly given that the other pillars of
mine action have been subject to evaluation on a regular basis. This issue is also linked with
the lack of information on needs and capacities. Without an adequate understanding of needs
and capacities, it is not possible to adequately assess the impact of programme activities.
Similarly without planning processes and specific objectives and goals in place, it would be
difficult to monitor and evaluate outcomes and impact.
With responsibility for the planning and implementation of VA and disability-related activities
shared on a sectoral basis between the relevant line ministries in each country, the survey
found that there was often a lack of clarity about the most appropriate agency to monitor and
evaluate progress and impact.
There were some notable exceptions though: the Lebanese Mine Action Centre plans to issue
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for VA activities later in the year; in Jordan there are
efforts to ensure that services provided for people with disabilities meet required standards
with the Higher Council for the Affairs of Persons with Disabilities (HCAPD) planning to accredit
all disability organisations and to regularly monitor their activities; in Croatia most of the
respondent organisations received their funding from the national government, which is
currently in the process of putting more stringent monitoring mechanisms in place.
18
7. ANALYTICAL ASSESSMENT
PART II: CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES
RESPONDING TO SURVIVOR NEEDS
Much has been said already about the need to develop context-specific responses to actual needs
on the ground in ways which ensure equitable access and equality of opportunity and choice for all
persons with disabilities including mine/ERW survivors. In order to do so, it is imperative to build
upon existing local knowledge of the context and to improve our understanding of existing needs,
capacities, resources and constraints to avoid overlapping and duplication of effort and to increase
coverage and quality. It is worth noting here though that “NGOs operating in service delivery …
should be careful not to adopt an exclusively needs based approach that neglects the poor’s rights
and fails to challenge the structures and institutions that brought about their deprivations in the
first place. The danger here is that NGOs in service provision might sometimes seek to maintain
these exploitative structures which provide them with funds to finance their projects.”16
Based upon their first-hand grassroots knowledge of their communities and areas, most of the
respondent organisations highlighted the challenges inherent in undertaking economic inclusion/
livelihoods recovery and rehabilitation programmes, given the extended investment of time and
resources required to build up the ‘skills, knowledge and employability’ of this traditionally
marginalised target group to enable them to overcome widespread discrimination and social
exclusion, which restricts their access to jobs, markets, entrepreneurship development and micro-
finance facilities17. Despite the inherent challenges, the study found that as many as 80% of the
organisations surveyed during the first phase of the project (more than 170 in number) were offering
socio-economic services in some form or the other – vocational training, small business support,
peer and/or psychosocial support – to persons with disabilities including mine/ERW survivors. This
seems to be in direct response to two principal factors – one, that improved economic and
employment opportunities have consistently been flagged by survivors and other persons with
disabilities as being key to their successful inclusion into mainstream society18, and two, that due
to a lack of capacity, resources and an insufficient understanding of real needs, there has been far
too little government support for such activities. 19 As a consequence, local civil society actors have
stepped in to fill in the gaps. Whether such activities undertaken by civil society actors can be
sustained over the long term remains doubtful, for reasons discussed earlier in this report, as well
as because addressing the root causes of livelihood vulnerability and insecurity requires the
establishment of linkages at multiple levels with multiple stakeholders, and of structural
mechanisms which eventually lead to equality of access, opportunity and choice for all vulnerable
groups, including persons with disabilities.
17 “an estimated 80 per cent of all people with disabilities in the world live in developing countries. Of these, some 426 million live below the poverty line and often
represent the 15-to-20 per cent most vulnerable and marginalized poor in such countries”, The right to decent work of persons with disabilities, Arthur O’Reilly,
International Labour Office, Geneva, 2007. (ISBN 9778-92-2-120144-1)
18 “... that the States Parties reconsider the importance of measures to ensure economic inclusion since this vital component of Victim Assistance has often been ignored in
the past,” Survivors’ Call to Action, Cartagena Summit on a Mine-free World, Colombia, 29 November-4 December 2009.
19 “Most efforts remained focused on medical care and physical rehabilitation, often supported by international organisations and funding, rather than on promoting
economic self-reliance for survivors, their families, and communities,” Landmine Monitor Report 2009, Executive Summary, Special Ten-Year Review, Victim Assistance,
p.53.
19
SURVIVOR INCLUSION
The Survivors’ Call to Action calls on all states to “guarantee meaningful participation of landmine
survivors in all areas of victim assistance at all levels”20. Participation may take place at the civil
society level, or the government level, and through coordination mechanisms. In many countries,
survivors have in fact taken the initiative themselves and set up their own associations, such as in
Croatia, the Karlovac Association for Mine Victims; in BiH, Eko Sportska and UDAS, and the
Landmine Survivors Initiative (LSI); in Uganda, the Ugandan Landmine Survivors Association (ULSA)
with its many member associations representing the different districts of Uganda; and in Cambodia,
the local NGO, Yodifee, established by a person with disability who was unable to find a job, and
wanted to provide socio-economic support to people in the same situation as his, to list a few.
Most of the respondent organisations which participated in the initial data-gathering phase claimed
to have active beneficiary involvement in the planning and implementation of their day-to-day
activities, with at least 45% of them employing beneficiaries as volunteers and about 15-20% of
them employing beneficiaries as paid staff members.
In terms of their inclusion in national VA and disability coordination mechanisms, some of the
associations run by survivors, particularly those in BiH, were critical of the role played by the
national coordinating body and questioned its right to represent survivors.
IMPROVING COORDINATION
CAP Action #23: “Establish, if they have not yet done so, an inter-agency coordination mechanism
for the development, implementation, and monitoring of appropriate national polices, plans and
legal frameworks, involving the full and active participation of landmine survivors and other relevant
stakeholders, and thus ensuring that the entity is assigned primary responsibility for overseeing
this coordination and has the authority and resources to carry out its task.”
Coordination is crucial to effective VA planning and implementation for several reasons: it enables
the participation of all the relevant stakeholders, links national civil society actors with government
actors, facilitates exchange of information and sharing of resources, helps to improve understanding
of main issues and concerns, and to avoid duplication of effort while addressing gaps, and enables
all participants to benefit from each others’ experiences. Additionally, it can be instrumental in
helping civil society actors to identify and determine their most appropriate and effective role in the
domains of service delivery, advocacy and policy change. Advocacy work and policy change, in
order to have an impact, cannot be done in isolation and must be conducted in collaboration with
other actors. However, effective coordination of VA activities remains elusive to many countries,
despite efforts made in recent years. Given the crucial role of coordination in developing a cohesive
and structured response to needs on the ground, simply saying it should take place is not enough,
and it is important to identify the reasons why coordination is not happening as it should and set
into place the concrete mechanisms to support it.
As identified during the course of this research, two main gaps in coordination were found to exist:
between government and civil society actors in general, and between survivor associations and VA
organisations, and more mainstream disability-related organisations. A number of disability and
veteran organisations (and some government bodies) surveyed in Croatia and BiH claimed not to
pay any particular attention to the needs of mine/ERW survivors in order to avoid any discrimination
on the basis of the cause of disability. Consequently they did not see any value in being part of VA
coordination mechanisms.
Other causes of ineffective coordination may be a lack of political will, and government incapacity
to hold meetings, disseminate information, and monitor activities due to an insufficient allocation
20 Survivors’ Call to Action, Cartagena Summit on a Mine-free World, Colombia, 29 November-4 December 2009.
20
of time and resources. Factors that impede coordination may also include divergent political or
stakeholder interests and agendas. While some political differences may be obvious in a post-
conflict country, others may be less so. There may be competition between various stakeholders for
the same pool of funding. In Angola for instance, the competition for scarce resources among the
national NGOs was cited by an international NGO, as being an obstacle to effective coordination
among them. One organisation may have more political influence than others to lobby government,
or there may simply be personality differences between the staff of the different organisations.
However, it should not be assumed that political differences mean that civil society organisations
will not coordinate together – there are plenty of examples of good coordination among groups that
may have been opposed to each other during conflict and may still be political rivals. It is useful to
conduct a stakeholder analysis, and study the interests of the different organisations and the power
relations between them. External bodies, particularly international organisations, should be
mindful of the fact that coordination problems may be due to factors that are not immediately
obvious to the outsider.
At times, the study found that there was confusion within the mine action centre (MAC) itself as to
its role in victim assistance. Among the survey respondents, a range of attitudes towards
coordination could be found, ranging from support towards coordination efforts to feeling some
resentment and viewing the MAC as “controlling”, with some survivors questioning the MAC’s right
to represent them. In Lebanon, the MAC is a military body, it chairs a victim assistance steering
committee, and although at first glance a military body might not appear to be appropriate for this
role, certain advantages can be identified, such as that it is authoritative enough to coordinate the
activities of a diverse group of actors in a politically diverse context, and that it facilitates access to
sensitive areas through providing permits etc.
One way to strengthen coordination mechanisms and processes can be to demonstrate to

stakeholders the benefits of coordination. If the coordinating body provides incentives – for
example, capacity-building and training courses on subjects related to project cycle management,
information on survivors and their needs, ways to increase the visibility of the work done by local
service providers – accompanied by a genuine culture of generating dialogue, knowledge-sharing
and information exchange, then local civil society organisations may be more inclined to play an
active role in ensuring the effectiveness of coordination mechanisms.
THE EVOLVING ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS IN VA AND DISABILITY SERVICE

PROVISION
The role played by civil society actors in VA may lie in the domains of advocacy, policy change and/
or service delivery, and can vary from country to country depending on several contextual factors
including: the specific needs of affected people and communities; the services delivered by other
providers, including government, UN agencies and INGOs; the existing strength and capacity for
engagement of national/local civil society as a whole; and available resources combined with the
capacity for mobilisation of these resources, amongst other factors.
23% of the respondents surveyed in the first phase of the data-gathering process were only involved
in service provision, 10% were only involved in advocacy and awareness-raising, and 70% were
engaged in both service delivery and advocacy. The majority of organisations engaged in advocacy
work believed that their work had been instrumental in effecting policy change at the national level.
However, it may be beneficial to pay greater attention to which role(s) may be the most appropriate
one(s) to play for local civil society organisations in a given context. Many actors may assume roles
based on present needs, but may not have taken into consideration longer term sustainability, or
how their activities may fit into the wider sector, or how their activities may impact on other
organisations. For example, by providing services directly, local civil society organisations may risk
absolving governments of their primary responsibility to ensure the basic rights of their populations.
It should also be noted that civil society organisations do not work in isolation, and their individual
21
roles may be best worked out through the coordinated efforts of all relevant stakeholders, including
both government and civil society actors.
In case study countries such as Croatia, BiH, Afghanistan and Colombia, besides filling gaps in
services, local organisations also help survivors and other persons with disabilities to access
services by providing them with information about available services as well as facilitating them to
access these services in accordance with their rights. For example in Croatia, one local NGO worked
with the Mine Action Centre to compile a guidebook of the legal rights of survivors with a directory
of service providers. In Colombia, government officials recognise the crucial role played by NGOs
and view this as an integral part of VA activities within the country. Advocating on behalf of survivors
and helping them to navigate confusing government regulations to access services and benefits is
seen as being the responsibility of the local NGOs.21
Some organisations do not provide services at all, but see their role entirely as facilitating survivors’
access to services, and advocating on their behalf. The respondents varied considerably in their
views about their roles in advocacy and policy change, with some viewing it as the primary focus of
what they do, while others regarded it as very secondary, if important at all, to their primary role of
providing services. Some thought it would detract from their service provision activities. Overall
though, as mentioned earlier, up to 70% of organisations surveyed in the first phase of data-
collection claimed to be active in both service provision and advocacy and awareness-raising.
In a Victim Assistance Workshop organised by Handicap International in May 2010 in Amman,

Jordan, the advantages and disadvantages of a civil society-government partnership in advocacy
work were discussed at great length. Some NGO participants saw governments as partners with
whom they could work together to advocate for survivors’ rights, while others viewed governments
as the targets of their advocacy work. Working on policy change can only be effective if there is
recognition of the constraints that governments face, and if civil society organisations see the
government as an ally to work with rather than as an adversary. For example, several NGOs in
Lebanon were sympathetic to the challenges their government faced as a result of political
instability. In BiH, most civil society respondents spoke of the challenges caused by complex
national governance structures. They were also understanding of the lack of funds available due to
the global economic recession. Another lesson learned was the need for patience. If legislation is
new, then changes may take time to follow through. For instance, local civil society actors in Croatia
credited themselves for bringing about necessary changes in the law, but also recognised the fact
that it would take time for the new policies to take effect.
As well as lobbying politicians and government bodies, a number of respondents also saw their role
as involving the changing of the mind-set among the public at large, for example through education
in schools about disability rights. A number of respondents also emphasised the need for a
paradigm shift away from a purely ‘medical’ approach to an approach based on human rights,
which empowers persons with disabilities to fight for their rights as individuals as well as
collectively.
On the whole it can be argued that collectively, it is best for civil society organisations to be involved
in all three activities provided they have the capacity to do so. “Service delivery can create the
necessary knowledge base for advocacy work because NGOs providing services to the poor are in a
better position to collect the necessary data needed to lobby for policy change. On the other hand,
those organisations operating in advocacy need to make sure that they do not ‘lose’ touch with the
grassroots.”22
21 ICBL, Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor 2010, Colombia Country Profile, 2010, http://www.the-monitor.org/index.php/cp/display/region_profiles/theme/509.
22
8. CASE STUDIES
The selected case-studies were collected in the first ‘Profile’ phase of the data-gathering process
and represent a few interesting examples of the range of activities being undertaken by local civil
society actors in the field of service delivery to persons with disabilities including mine/ERW
survivors. These examples do not necessarily include the respondents of the second “Analytical”
phase of data-gathering.
CASE STUDY I: MINE AID, CROATIA
Project I: Provision of psychological assistance to and capacity-building of survivors
Name of Organisation: Duration: 10 months (May 2009 - March 2010)

MINE AID, CROATIA
Goal: Strengthening and integration of mine victims into society through group
Target Group: psychotherapy and education, to enable them to cope with the lasting effects of disability,
Landmine/ and to improve their employment prospects.
ERW survivors
Location of Activities: Activities:

Zagreb, Brod-Posavina,
Karlovac, Lika-Senj, a) Group psychotherapy
Osijek-Baranja,
Sisak-Moslavina, Main Objective:
Sibenik-Knin,
Vukovar-Srijem and 1. T o empower victims by assessing their skills and capacities and by supporting them
Zadar according to their individual needs, abilities and preferences.
Kind of Activities: The current group consists of 6 mine victims, four of whom are amputees, one has internal
Psychological Support injuries and one is the child of a survivor. The group is led by a professional psychotherapist
(professional and the observer is a social worker.
psychological and peer
Support), Psychosocial b) C
onducting of seminar “Promotion of rights of the mine survivors and coordination of
support (counselling, social services and activities” - 27 participants
education, rights
awareness, field visits, Main Objectives:
financial aid,
scholarships, 1. T o promote exchange of information and knowledge on the scope and nature of the
incentives for problems faced by organisations/institutions involved in the protection and
self-employment) implementation of rights for persons with disabilities;
2. T o improve cooperation and networking between these organisations/institutions, and

relevant governmental and non-governmental actors.
The target audience of this seminar included both mine victims, and institutions and
organisations directly or indirectly involved in the protection and implementation of rights
for persons with disabilities.
23
Outputs of the seminar:
• Exchange of key information on the jurisdiction of the organisations working on

protection and implementation of rights for persons with disabilities
• Imparting of information on the basic rights of mine/ERW victims and survivors
• Definition of key issues for upholding the rights and interests of mine/ERW victims
• Establishment of contacts between seminar participants and delineation of first

steps towards further cooperation and collaboration
c) O
rganisation of workshop “Rehabilitation, employment and self-employment of
persons with disabilities” - 8 participants
Main Objective:
1. To educate mine/ERW victims on the available prospects and opportunities for
professional rehabilitation, employment and self-employment.
Outputs of the workshop:
• Imparting of information on the services and facilities provided by the Croatian

Employment Institute and Fund for Professional Rehabilitation and Employment
of Persons with Disabilities
• Provision of relevant resource material and useful contact information to

workshop participants, who were encouraged to disseminate the information to
other persons with disabilities in their communities
d) O
rganisation of the workshop titled “Expanding the network of psychosocial and
economic support,” in Karlovac County and Sisak County (23 participants)
Main Objective:
1. T o improve linkages between survivors and introduce them to the different available
forms and possibilities for psychosocial and economic support.
Outputs of the workshop:
• Imparting of information about the existence and activities of the Association of

Mine Aid and the Croatian Mine Victims Association of Karlovac County
• Participants made familiar with the various forms of assistance and peer support
available
• Identification of the needs of the participants in terms of professional

psychological support and peer support
• Imparting of information about planned project activities and economic

reintegration opportunities through the presentation of the upcoming project
“Socio-economic reintegration of mine survivors in the community”
• Identification of interest for inclusion in the economic reintegration project

through concrete business development ideas.
24
e) Field visits
Completed by: Main Objectives:

MARIJA BREBER
1. To enable mine/ERW victims to gain better insight into their social environment
Position in organisation:
Member of Presidential 2. T o provide adequate psychosocial support to individuals living in remote locations and
Council those who have mobility problems
Contact: 3. T o provide a common platform to enhance communication and information exchange

+385992771372; between mine/ERW victims on their rights and opportunities
marijabreber@
gmail.com Field visits were made to Slavonski Brod, Bogdanovci, Vinkovci, Beli Manastir, Karlovac,
Plaskog, Zagreb, Gospic, Otocac, Sisak, Petrinja and Jabukovac, to a total number of 23
Organisation: survivors, including approximately 60 members of their families, and the families of 2
MINE AID, CROATIA mine casualties.
Number of years of f) Financial assistance

operating in country:
Formally since 2003 Main Objective:
(7 years), but more
actively since March 1. To provide financial assistance for basic medical needs and travel expenses incurred for
2006 (4 years). group therapy sessions
Outputs:
2 s urvivors and the families of 2 mine casualties were provided with financial assistance.
Project II: Support for the education of mine/ERW victims
Duration: 12 months (June 2008 - May 2009)
Main Objectives:
1. T o provide the financial resources necessary to cover the basic costs of regular education
and the necessary educational programmes for the school year 2008-2009.
The target group for this project consisted of mine/ERW victims and covered about 27
individuals.
Outputs of the Project:
• Identification of the educational needs of persons directly (through injury) and

indirectly affected by mines/ERW (members of their families)
• Provision of financial support for basic educational needs and additional

education for qualification purposes
• Increase in the knowledge and skills of the beneficiary group
• Improved employment opportunities
• Provision of support in terms of psychosocial and legal consultation
• Building up of self-esteem of mine/ERW survivors and their families
25
CASE STUDY II: ECO SPORTS GROUP, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
• The Eco Sports Group uses water and more specifically, water sports as the
medium for the psychological rehabilitation, social integration and education of
Name of Organisation: persons with disabilities, although the organisation prefers to use the term
ECO SPORTS GROUP, ‘psycho-physical well-being’, refusing to label the participants as ‘victims’.
BOSNIA AND
HERZEGOVINA (BiH) • Eco Sports Group is the first organisation in the world to use water sports such
as scuba diving and rafting for the rehabilitation of large groups of persons with
Target Group: disabilities. Through a new and innovative approach focused on water sports,
Various vulnerable which are even considered extreme to some degree, they have given persons
groups including people with disabilities first of all, a feeling that they are worthy and that they can do
with disabilities and what others cannot, but they have also given them the means to apply this new
mine/ERW survivors found confidence to their real life situations, families and daily activities. Unlike
many others, they have taken persons with disabilities into the open world of
Location of Activities: nature; they have taught them not be embarrassed by their handicap and have
Throughout the country given them the opportunity to engage in sports otherwise unattainable due to
with concentration their own modest budgets.
areas being Sarajevo,
Tuzla, Banja-Luka, • The organisation has also helped persons with disabilities in setting up their
Bihać, Trebinje, Brčko, own small businesses and thereby, made it possible for them to go on with their
Mostar, Neum; some lives again. Throughout the 10 years of their existence, they have worked with
activities in Croatia various social groups, and have covered over 3000 persons with disabilities and
and Montenegro other vulnerable groups through project activities such as: rehabilitation, social
integration, and education through water sports; socio-economic strengthening;
Kind of Activities: mine risk education for children and youngsters; and training and specialization
Peer/ Psychological of special police units for underwater activities.
Support, Physiotherapy,
Advocacy and Testimony from some of the participants:
Awareness-Raising,
Small business support “Today, at our diving and rafting camps, you can hear laughter and songs; you can hear
(micro-credit etc.), children yelling and playing; you can hear all the sounds of a bunch of friends having a
Occupational Therapy great time. What you will NEVER hear in our company is crying, sobbing or complaining!”
Completed by: For more details please visit http://www.scuba.ba/en/about-us/projects.html

ADNAN ARNAUTLIJA
Position in organization:
Technical/
Administrative Assistant
Contact:
eco.grupa@bih.net.ba
www.scuba.ba
Organization:
ECO SPORTS GROUP,
SARAJEVO
Number of years of
10 years.
26
CASE STUDY III: FAMILY WELFARE FOCUS (FWF), AFGHANISTAN
Project I: Provision of support for inclusion in education for hearing-impaired

children
Name of Organisation:
FAMILY WELFARE FOCUS Duration: 12 months (1 January – 31 December 2009)
(FWF), AFGHANISTAN
Main Objectives:
Target Group: Various
vulnerable groups 1. T o strengthen and support the integrity and well-being of the family as a primary unit of
including people with society and to advocate for these concepts.
disabilities and mine/
ERW survivors 2. T o advocate the rights of the child and to eliminate factors which restrict the healthy
physical, mental and social development of children
Location of Activities:
Kabul (Two centres), 3. To struggle against violence towards women and children
Kunduz and
Badakhshan 4. To support the socio-economic self-reliance of women and children
Kind of Activities: Outputs of the Project:

Education, Health,
Socio-Economic • 10 students (8 girls and 2 boys) graduated from Grade 12th in March 2009 and
Support, Awareness- are currently preparing to sit for the university entrance examination for this
raising of the rights of academic year. The participation of hearing-impaired graduate students is
women and children unprecedented in Afghanistan and demonstrates in practice, how to ensure
equal accessibility of all children including those with hearing difficulties, to
basic education as well as higher education facilities in Kabul.
• 47 new students with hearing impairments (33 boys and 14 girls) have enrolled
at the beginning of the current academic year.
• Parents of children with hearing difficulties have been taught up to 1800 sign
words by social workers.
• All the teachers and staff of the organisation were provided training on the
basics of inclusive education and class administration in a 5-day workshop.
• 4 speech therapy teachers received a 10-day training course on speech therapy.
• The Teachers Committee School prepared 11 administrative and pedagogical

books under the authority of the Ministry of Education, Afghanistan.
• A Sign Language Dictionary containing 2000 words was prepared and published
by the Sign Language Expansion Committee.
• In September 2009, 20 students graduated from a tailoring training course.

These students are able to sell their products in Bagh-e-Zanana, which is a
special market for women, and are able to earn a good living from it.
• The organisation has actively promoted entertainment and other leisure

activities for both hearing- impaired and able-bodied children, believing this to
be the best approach for full inclusion and participation in society for persons
with disabilities.
27
• Hearing-impaired students supported by the organisation, have been able to
pursue higher studies at university.
Completed by:
SIAWASH PAYAB • The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is one of the core subjects in the
education curriculum. Guided by the obligations laid out in the CRC, the
Position in organisation: organisation has actively advocated for equal participation of students (boys
Chief Executive Officer and girls) in academic life, for accessibility of all students to all resources, for an
(CEO) end to corporal punishment in schools and to domestic violence, and for an
improvement in the quality of services for all persons with disabilities including
Contact: women and children.
+93 (0) 700-282242
Email: For more details please visit http://www.fwf.af
siawash.payab@
yahoo.com /
siawashpayab@fwf.af
Website:
http://www.fwf.af
Organisation:
FAMILY WELFARE
FOCUS, AFGHANISTAN
Number of years of
More than 14 years
28
CASE STUDY IV: YODIFEE (YOUTH WITH DISABILITIES FOUNDATION FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT), CAMBODIA
Main Objectives:
Name of Organisation: 1. Y
odifee is a Cambodian non-governmental organisation that seeks to empower young
YODIFEE (YOUTH WITH Cambodians with disabilities through education and training leading to improved
DISABILITIES employment and livelihood opportunities and greater self sufficiency.
FOUNDATION FOR
EDUCATION AND 2. Y
odifee provides training (in motorbike repair, hairdressing, wood sculpting, sewing,
EMPLOYMENT, farming, and hospitality amongst other skills) and employment opportunities together
CAMBODIA with interest-free loans to a limited number of persons with disabilities to enable them
to start their own businesses.
Target Group:
Young persons with 3. T he organisation supports children with disabilities from all over Cambodia, with over
disabilities including 600 children and youngsters using their services. It offers financial help to those
mine/ERW survivors disadvantaged families which otherwise might not be able to do so, to educate their
children with disabilities.
Location of Activities:
Based in the Kandal 4. The organization aims to build up the capacities of its beneficiaries to their full potential
and Kampot provinces, and to do so, it is constantly striving to improve its programmes, systems, and support
the organization serves services to make them more relevant and effective.
people throughout the
country
Project: ‘Farming To Live’ project to improve livelihood skills and economic
Kind of Activities: opportunities
Education, Vocational
Training, Small Duration: Ongoing
Business Support
(micro-credit, business Outputs of the project:
Training)
• To improve the livelihood skills of persons with disabilities, who are often
Completed by: amongst the poorest of the poor, by providing skills development training in
NIMUL OUCH farming, cultivation, and animal husbandry.
Position in organisation: • Yodifarm, a division of Yodifee, works to promote livelihood opportunities for
Director young people with disabilities to enable them to become economically
independent and self-sufficient. Kampot Yodifarm was established in 2007, and
Contact: the project has been continuing successfully so far to support the needs of its
(+855) 12 324 548 target group.
Email: nimullavalla@
yodifee.org • 9 young people with disabilities have been receiving capacity building training
Website: at the farm on the theory and practice of animal husbandry, vegetable cultivation
http://www.yodifee.org as well as customer services and sales techniques.
Organisation: • After the end of their training, the trainees will be helped to set up their own
YODIFEE, farms in their communities so they are able to earn a living from them.
CAMBODIA
For more details please visit http://www.yodifee.org
Number of years of
More than 9 years
29
9. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In the course of both its ‘profile’ and ‘analytical’ phases, this study has looked at a fairly diverse
range of local civil society actors ranging from local NGOs to survivor associations, DPOs, CBOs and
networks. The research sample of about 45 respondent organisations in 8 case-study countries for
the second phase of the study was too small to be truly representative of the global situation on the
ground with regard to service provision for persons with disabilities including mine/ERW survivors.
However combined with the data gathered from the 170-175 organisations from the first ‘Profile’
phase of the study, certain broad conclusions can be drawn:
Most local civil society organisations surveyed had a good understanding of their key strengths and
weaknesses. Most of them had formal planning processes in place and were able to identify their
operational gaps and capacity-building needs. Working at the grassroots level, the majority of
these organisations have been able to draw upon their first-hand knowledge of their areas and
communities to determine real needs and priorities, as evident in the large number of such
organisations active in the provision of support services for socio-economic inclusion in response
to inadequate government provision of such services. Many of these organisations have attempted
to make their decision-making and implementation processes more participatory by actively
involving beneficiaries, on a voluntary basis or otherwise. Being largely dependent on project-
based grants for their survival, a number of these organisations have tried to diversify their funding
mechanisms (by applying user charges for services provided, making productive use of fixed assets
such as land and office space etc.) and thereby to reduce their dependence on international donor
or national government funding, and to make their activities more sustainable.
Despite the inherent challenges of coordination in most contexts, up to 80% of the organisations
surveyed were members of some kind of local, national, regional and even international, networks
and umbrella platforms though the level of participation in these networks varied. Most of the
respondent organisations were also keen on collaborating with international humanitarian actors
provided there was a committed approach to partnership with shared decision-making and
implementation authority.
Nevertheless, some key challenges were identified which hamper implementation, reduce long
term impact on affected people and communities, and risk making these locally-driven initiatives
unsustainable. The most commonly identified constraints and challenges can be divided into two
main categories – external factors relating to an organisation’s operational and policy environment,
and internal factors relating to an organisation’s own strengths and weaknesses.
EXTERNAL FACTORS AFFECTING IMPLEMENTATION AND SUSTAINABILITY
• Lack of adequate enforcement and awareness-raising of legislative and policy frameworks

and plans
According to many respondent organisations, while there may often be the right laws, policies and
plans in place, there is often inadequate enforcement and awareness-raising, thereby making the
existing legal and policy environment non-conducive and restrictive for improving the coordination,
quality and coverage of service delivery.
30
• Lack of funding/ irregular and variable funding flows
Most local organisations, at least 70% of respondents, conduct activities with small project-based
grants from INGOs, multilateral agencies, foreign donors, and international and national
governments – this modality of funding is by its very nature, unsustainable and impacts adversely
on sustainable service provision to the end-users. The research also shows that most donors are
keener to fund ‘project activities’ rather than ‘core costs’ thereby leaving recipient organisations
permanently insecure about their future, and incapable of building up their resource and knowledge
base.
• Lack of adequate national level coordination mechanisms to compile, collate and disseminate
knowledge and information between the different stakeholders
There is a need for more sustained and comprehensive coordination mechanisms in order to ensure
that VA service provision is fully coordinated with other disability-related services and in turn, with
mainstream service provision under the inclusive model of development. There is also a need for a
real and meaningful exchange of information and knowledge (a common complaint voiced by the
study’s respondents was that “there was a one-way flow of information only” from them to the
coordinating body/agency.) Some of the organisations questioned admitted to choosing to stay out
of national coordination structures, finding them too time-consuming and labour-intensive with no
obvious benefits arising from participation.
• Lack of adequate government capacity to plan, implement, monitor and coordinate service
delivery to persons with disabilities including mine/ERW survivors
The large number of local civil society organizations involved in service provision for persons with
disabilities including mine/ERW survivors, despite their inherent constraints of limited funding and
resources, is indicative of the huge gaps in service provision by the state that still remain in most
affected countries around the world. Local civil society actors have stepped in to fill in these gaps
when needed, overstretching their capacities and resources in the process and often unable to
guarantee a consistent and adequate quality of service delivery. Also due to resource constraints,
most local civil society service providers are able to work best with smaller groups of beneficiaries
at a time, but find that they are unable to scale up their activities or replicate innovative projects in
other areas even when and where there is a high demand for their services.
INTERNAL FACTORS AFFECTING IMPLEMENTATION AND SUSTAINABILITY
• Lack of organisational capacity
High staff turnover, lack of skilled staff and inability to retain staff, lack of funding and fundraising
capacity, lack of research and data management capacities, are some of the key operational
challenges identified by respondent organisations in the course of this study.
• Lack of comprehensive context-specific assessments of needs, vulnerabilities and capacities
Most organisations in the field work with an innate knowledge of the needs of their own communities,
which while ensuring relevance and conformity to cultural sensitivities and enabling the
development of more context-specific responses, can end up entrenching prevailing patterns of
social injustice and discrimination towards certain groups in a population. The use of participatory
tools such as Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRAs), Vulnerability Mapping, Stakeholder Analysis,
31
etc. does not seem to be common practice among the respondent organisations. This can lead to
inadequate and insufficient disaggregation of data with the specific needs of an already vulnerable
and marginalised group such as women and children with disabilities, being overlooked or
disregarded.
CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES
• Socio-economic/livelihood activities are by and large, identified as being the most ‘difficult
to implement’
The nature of the activities undertaken for socio-economic rehabilitation and inclusion generally
calls for the allocation of more funding by donors over a sustained period of time, and a long term
investment of time and resources (both human and financial) to undertake more comprehensive
needs assessments, including market analyses, to bring about change in discriminatory attitudes
from potential employers, to equip people with the necessary skills, to improve their access to
microfinance systems, and to do the necessary follow-up over time.
• Relations with international organisations/international cooperation
Most national civil society organisations describe their experience of working with international
partners as highly beneficial in terms of improving their access to international donor funding
streams and in enabling greater exchange of knowledge and information. However at the same
time, most of these organisations describe these partnerships as being inherently unequal and
imbalanced with no real devolution of decision-making authority from the international to the
national partner, particularly with regards to the setting of programmatic and operational priorities.
By and large, most respondent organisations felt that they were used merely as local implementing
partners by international organisations for the duration of the project. Most of them found that the
loss of crucial contacts and their own insufficient capacity for fundraising and donor liaison,
combined with often overly complex international donor funding procedures, made it difficult for
them to tap into international donor funding streams after the departure of the international
partner.
• Lack of clarity about the most appropriate and effective role for local civil society actors
The study found that often due to a lack of comprehensive coordination, their limited scope of
operations and inadequate monitoring and impact assessment mechanisms, most of the
organisations surveyed during the second analytical phase did not seem to have a clear idea of how
their activities complemented the activities of other organisations undertaking similar activities at
the local and national level. With some organisations either being unaware of existing national
plans for victim assistance and/or disability service provision or by them deliberately choosing to
work outside the parameters of such plans (often because these were formulated without taking
them into consultation), the risk for duplication and overlapping of activities can be assumed to be
quite high, thereby limiting the potential impact of their activities on intended beneficiaries.
32
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CIVIL SOCIETY ACTORS, NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS, DONORS AND POLICYMAKERS
Needs Assessments
• Recognise that national/local civil society organisations are well placed to understand
the needs on the ground, particularly when they belong to the same area as their
target populations.
• Conduct exhaustive needs, vulnerabilities and capacities assessments (NCVAs)

building upon existing local knowledge and competencies
• Invest adequate resources in collecting reliable and disaggregated (by age, gender,
ethnicity, cause of disability, household profile, assets etc.) data for needs
assessments.
• Use participatory techniques to maximise beneficiary/survivor inclusion, and consult

all relevant stakeholders through the use of tools such as Stakeholder Analysis,
Vulnerability Mapping, household profiles etc. in order to make the process of needs
identification and priority setting as comprehensive and context-specific as possible.
• Put in place structural mechanisms for the effective exchange of information on

affected people and communities, and for knowledge-sharing on best practices and
lessons learnt.
• Map capacities for VA/disability-related service provision across all sectors and
disciplines.
Planning, Implementation, and Monitoring and Evaluation
• Ensure plans are realistic and achievable and cognisant of existing and potential
constraints and weaknesses within the organisation and its operational environment
• Ensure plans are properly implemented with maximum beneficiary/survivor inclusion

to lead to greater local ownership and more locally-driven capacity building processes
• Ensure that plans and activities are continually monitored throughout the programme
cycle for both short and long term impact assessment, to allow them to be adapted to
the changing conditions of the project environment and the evolving needs of project
beneficiaries. It is imperative to ensure that beneficiaries and other local stakeholders
are involved in the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) process through the development
of community-driven M&E mechanisms.
• Ensure that national plans are developed in collaboration with all relevant stakeholders
including national/local civil society organisations and are based upon a
comprehensive and realistic understanding of existing needs, resources, competencies
and roles. National plans should aim to build upon what exists, to identify best
practices and innovative strategies, and to supplement existing gaps and constraints.
33
Coordination
• Clearly define the role of the coordinating body, and make sure that all stakeholders
understand and accept it
• Ensure the involvement of all stakeholders including relevant government ministries

and disability-related NGOs
• Make sure that coordination processes are participatory and inclusive for all
stakeholders and allow for the participation of all interest groups including the most
vulnerable and marginalised.
• Ensure a full two-way exchange of information between all the actors in the coordination
mechanism
• Ensure that those stakeholders participating in coordination see the benefits of

participation and recognise the multiple advantages of improved access to information,
knowledge and resources accruing from greater coordination between the different
actors in service provision.
• Allocate sufficient international, national and local resources for coordination
Funding
• Earmark long term funding for the entire duration of the project cycle from needs
assessments to monitoring and evaluation
• Ensure that funding is allocated not only for project activities but also, for meeting the
core costs of the implementing or partner organisations, such as those incurred in
retaining and training staff, for procuring necessary office infrastructure and
maintenance, for building up research and data management capacities, for outreach
and awareness-raising activities etc.
• Ensure that the funding allocated contributes to the development or strengthening

and improvement of monitoring and evaluation processes at the organisational level
in order to ensure greater accountability and transparency.
• Invest in capacity-building measures to train local government and civil society actors
in the most effective fundraising processes, and take steps to simplify international
donor funding application procedures.
Survivor Inclusion
• Put mechanisms in place to ensure the involvement of survivors and other persons
with disabilities in all relevant decision-making processes, and at every stage of the
project management cycle from needs assessments to monitoring and evaluation.
• Make every effort possible to disaggregate beneficiary/survivor inclusion to include

both those directly and indirectly affected – survivors, their families and the wider
community.
34
• Ensure that survivors or beneficiaries are not viewed as one composite group but as
consisting of disparate groups of people with different needs and priorities
disaggregated on the basis of gender, age, ethnicity, extent of disability, existing
skills and capacities, livelihood portfolios etc.
Evolving Roles and Responsibilities
• Need for local civil society organizations to examine and reflect on their current role
and on what could be their most effective role in VA/disability-related service delivery?
• Need for organizations to reflect on:
· What role(s) does the organisation currently play? What activities does it
undertake and why?
· Based on lessons learnt from its own experience and that of others, would the
organisation benefit from changing/reducing/expanding its role?
· Would changing the organisation’s current role help it to resolve some of the
challenges that it might currently face, for instance with legal/policy
frameworks, lack of funding, lack of organisational capacity, discriminatory
attitudes towards disability issues?
· Service provision, and if so, as ‘direct implementers’ or ‘facilitators’?
· Filling the gaps left by government and/or supporting and complementing

government initiatives?
· Facilitating access to services, helping survivors to understand their rights and

empower them to advocate for these rights?
• Need for local civil society organisations to ensure that national plans for VA and
disability-related service provision are more responsive to real needs on the ground,
recognise existing capacities and practices, and build upon them rather than
undermining them.
• Need for local civil society actors to contribute actively and meaningfully to the
development of national laws and policies in support of mine/ERW survivors and
other persons with disabilities, and to support and lobby the government to implement
such laws and policies effectively.
SUMMARY
While service delivery by civil society actors can be useful and effective in the short term in meeting
immediate needs, in the long term, the state is the only actor which has the mandate, resources
and structural mechanisms to provide basic services and infrastructure in a sustainable manner to
its population including persons with disabilities. Ultimately it is also the state in its capacity as
‘duty-bearer’ which must take up its responsibilities towards all members of its population. Civil
society actors can at best, play a facilitative role, supplementing and aiding the state in achieving
maximum coverage and impact.
35
10. REFERENCES
1. Cartagena Action Plan, IV “Assisting the Victims” pp 5-6 (Actions #21 – 29)
2. Survivors’ Call to Action, Cartagena Summit on a Mine-free World, Colombia,

29 November-4 December 2009.
3. ICBL Statement on International Cooperation and Assistance - Victim Assistance,

Intersessional Standing Committee Meetings, 25 June 2010, Geneva,
http://www.apminebanconvention.org/fileadmin/pdf/mbc/IWP/SC_june10/
Speeches-Special/SpecialSession-VA-25June2010-ICBL.pdf.
4. Solava Ibrahim and David Hulme, Has civil society helped the poor?–A review of the roles
and contributions of civil society to poverty reduction, Brooks World Poverty Institute
Working Paper 114, University of Manchester, March 2010.
5. Landmine Monitor Report 2009, Executive Summary, Special Ten-Year Review, Victim
Assistance, November 2009.
6. Handicap International, Voices from the Ground: Landmine and Explosive Remnants of War
Survivors speak out on Victim Assistance, September 2009.
7. www.mineaction.org/downloads/1/Nairobi_Action_Plan%5B1%5D.pdf and
http://www.mineaction.org/doc.asp?d=1300
8. Ambassador Susan Eckey of Norway, “Victim assistance is a human rights issue that aims
to address the rights and needs of people who are often marginalised and living in
vulnerable situations in countries with limited resources and many competing priorities”,
Enhancing Cooperation and Assistance as concerns Victim Assistance, Discussion Paper,
Intersessional Standing Committee Meetings, 24 June 2010.
9. Action Aid, Human Rights-based approaches to poverty eradication and development,

June 2008, p.7, http://actionaid-staging.rubylithcms.com/rubylith/files/HRBA%20paper.
pdf.
10. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Article 2, 2009.
11. Department for International Development (DFID-UK), the DFID Approach to Sustainable
Livelihoods, National Strategies for Sustainable Development, 2004,
http://www.nssd.net/references/SustLiveli/DFIDapproach.htm#Top.
36
Khtoeup Veb is 56 years old and lives in Siem Reap Province in
Cambodia. He owns 0.5 hectares of land on which he cultivates
rice, bananas and papayas with the help of his 5 children and
neighbouring families. In 1979, he lost a leg when he stepped
on a landmine while cutting bamboo for sale. He received
his first orthopaedic device in 1997, nearly 20 years after his
accident. Previously he used to walk about with crutches which
he had made himself. “Since getting a prosthesis in 1997, my
hands are free again for me to work on the land” says Khtoeup
Veb.
Recent studies such as “Voices from the Ground: Landmine

and Explosive Remnants of War Survivors speak out on Victim
Assistance” undertaken by Handicap International in 2009
and annual reporting on progress conducted by the Landmine
and Cluster Munition Monitor show that even 10 years after
the Mine Ban Treaty’s (MBT) entry into force, victim assistance
for the survivors of landmines/explosive remnants of war
(ERW) has remained one of the sectors which shows the least
demonstrable progress. There is still far too little knowledge
and understanding of survivor needs in the very different
contexts where survivors live worldwide, and there is little to
no assessment of the impact of the VA initiatives which have
been undertaken to date, to see what works, what does not,
and why.
This study “Sustainable 101: Victim Assistance 10 years

on”, carried out by Handicap International with the financial
support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgium, aims to
begin the process of mapping and assessing the current
situation on service provision to persons with disabilities
including mine/ERW survivors in 29 affected countries
around the world. It is intended to supplement gaps in our
© John Vink – Magnum
knowledge and understanding of the challenges, constraints
and opportunities which local civil society organisations face,
and to build upon the available body of data and information
on victim assistance and disability-related service provision
in the selected affected countries. The study and its various
outputs address multiple audiences: the primary target-group
of national service-providers through the accompanying
online directory and tool-kit, and secondarily, the donors,
policymakers and the international humanitarian sector
through the findings presented in this report.
Funded under a grant from

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgium

Sustainable 101:: Victim Assistance 10 Years On

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Sustainable 101:: Victim Assistance 10 Years On

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SUSTAINABLE 101:

VICTIM ASSISTANCE 10 YEARS ON

BRIDGING THE GAP

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN POLICY AND PRACTICE

3. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AND ITS OBJECTIVES 5

PART I: THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT CYCLE  12

PART II: CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES 19

9. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 30

The Research Team

• An analytical assessment of organisational performance in a select sample of case

The 29 mine/ERW affected countries covered by this study are as follows:

The primary objectives of this study are:

RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY:

3 See www.mineaction.org/downloads/1/Nairobi_Action_Plan%5B1%5D.pdf and http://www.mineaction.org/doc.asp?d=1300

• Improved access to high-quality education, information, technologies and

• Better nutrition and health;

• A more cohesive and supportive social environment;

• More secure access to, and better management of natural resources;

• Better access to basic and facilitating infrastructure;

• More secure access to financial resources; and

• A policy and institutional environment that supports multiple livelihood strategies

SELECTION CRITERIA FOR RESEARCH SAMPLE FOR ANALYTICAL STUDY

PART I: THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT CYCLE

UNDERSTANDING NEEDS AND CAPACITIES

Internal organisational capacities

External factors affecting implementation

Geographical isolation and inaccessibility, often accompanied by physical insecurity, was

As mentioned previously, a prevailing culture of discriminatory attitudes and taboos against

Funding and financial sustainability

Several of the respondent organisations used a combination of funding mechanisms in order

Implementation carried out in ‘partnership’ with international organisations

MONITORING AND EVALUATION

On a more macro level, there appeared to be no nation-wide evaluations of VA activities in any

PART II: CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES

RESPONDING TO SURVIVOR NEEDS

One way to strengthen coordination mechanisms and processes can be to demonstrate to

THE EVOLVING ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS IN VA AND DISABILITY SERVICE

In a Victim Assistance Workshop organised by Handicap International in May 2010 in Amman,

CASE STUDY I: MINE AID, CROATIA

Project I: Provision of psychological assistance to and capacity-building of survivors

Name of Organisation: Duration: 10 months (May 2009 - March 2010)

Location of Activities: Activities:

2. T o improve cooperation and networking between these organisations/institutions, and

• Exchange of key information on the jurisdiction of the organisations working on

• Imparting of information on the basic rights of mine/ERW victims and survivors

• Establishment of contacts between seminar participants and delineation of first

Outputs of the workshop:

• Imparting of information on the services and facilities provided by the Croatian

• Provision of relevant resource material and useful contact information to

Outputs of the workshop:

• Imparting of information about the existence and activities of the Association of

• Identification of the needs of the participants in terms of professional

• Imparting of information about planned project activities and economic

• Identification of interest for inclusion in the economic reintegration project

Completed by: Main Objectives:

Contact: 3. T o provide a common platform to enhance communication and information exchange

Number of years of f) Financial assistance

Project II: Support for the education of mine/ERW victims

Duration: 12 months (June 2008 - May 2009)

Outputs of the Project:

• Identification of the educational needs of persons directly (through injury) and

• Provision of financial support for basic educational needs and additional

• Increase in the knowledge and skills of the beneficiary group

3. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AND ITS OBJECTIVES 5

PART I: THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT CYCLE 12

PART II: CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES 19

9. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 30

2. T o improve cooperation and networking between these organisations/institutions, and

Contact: 3. T o provide a common platform to enhance communication and information exchange